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We are thrilled to announce that peer-to-peer business software review platform G2 has again placed VComply as a High Performer in the GRC Platform category in their Winter 2021 announcement. Organizations rely on research firms like G2 to help them analyze and compare business software products, and we are excited about the recognition.
We are thankful to our valued customers for this validation. We consider user feedback as a great technique to stay in close contact with our customers and get up to speed on improvements and provide value.
In case you missed it, here’s the score that our customers have given us:
Besides this, VComply also stands out in the following areas:
VComply received 8.7 score on a scale of 1-10 for ease of use, outranking many competitors in the GRC category and became a preferred choice for customers.
At VComply, we take great pride in serving our customers. We talk to our customers and help them find the quickest way to solve their problems. And the results speak for themselves! VComply received a score of 8.7 in the quality of support category.
VComply scored 8.7 in the ease of setup category. VComply is intuitive and it is very easy to create an account on VComply. On an average, our customers have gone on-live in less than 2 weeks.
At VComply, our goal is to make the easiest and the most useful GRC software for organizations. Ever since we started in 2019, we have adopted a customer-centric approach. We have made meaningful changes to our compliance, risk, and audit product range to meet the evolving requirements of our customers. Now, VComply helps teams across compliance, risks, audit, human resources, and legal in varied industry sectors to manage their individual responsibilities, while making it easier for leadership to coordinate organization wide compliance activities.
It was simple, it was easy to engage with, and it had a little bit of light-heartedness as well as a very easy to use Dashboard and reports. With VComply, our teams can quickly and easily comply with responsibilities, and our ability to provide oversight across the agency, in one central location is achieved.
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We recognize that there is a lot of work ahead. And, we are committed to the vision of making the world’s most trusted GRC platform for our customers. We continue to add robust features and enhance existing features in our platform to help you strengthen the compliance and integrity of your organization.
Read our reviews here on G2!
Growth is something that organizations have their eyes fixed on. They are cautious of wasting precious time and money in costly lawsuits, compliance risks resulting in penalties, or reputational damage. Internal controls help establish procedures and policies to keep the organization compliant, prevent employees from committing fraud, and improve the organization's operational and financial efficiency.
COSO defines internal control framework as the following:
A process, effected by an entity's board of directors, management and other personnel, designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives in the following categories:
Internal Controls are made up of steps, procedures, policies, and rules designed to ensure that an organization meets its objectives in the most efficient manner and prevent, detect, and mitigate risks facing organizations. Internal Controls aim at operational efficiency and effectiveness through the control of risks. Many experts even comment that internal controls are part of day-to-day operations.
The following are the basic features required for a robust internal control system:
The most important principle of internal control is establishing and entrusting the responsibility to specific individuals. Many times, teams fail because of the lack of clarity on one's responsibilities. Controls work the best when individuals are made responsible for executing tasks. Establishing responsibility includes authorizing the power to execute certain actions to these individuals.
Separating duties involve bifurcating a task into a series of small tasks and sharing them among various employees. Separation of tasks (SOD) is the basic building block of internal controls and risk management and helps prevent fraud and errors. When parts of a task are divided and distributed to two or more employees, it reduces wrong doings, errors, and swindling. The SOD promotes shared responsibilities and prevents just one person from accessing company's critical assets. The concept of SOD is derived from the notion that giving complete control of critical systems and vulnerable processes to one single individual can increase risks.
Documentation is a critical component of any internal control. Maintaining appropriate records enables storing and safeguarding of documentation, and includes destroying any tangible obsolete records. A GRC platform like VComply helps organizations maintain a central repository of records, and associate proofs or evidence for a control. It also facilitates role based access to records and restricts unauthorized access. A backup of the data ensures that there is no data loss.
Independent internal verification or audits ensure that that controls are working as intended. They also assure the organization that it complies with rules and regulations, performance of operations are effective, and financial reporting is accurate.
Physical as well as digital safeguards help protect company's assets. They can be physical e.g. locks or intangible e.g. – passwords and pins . Irrespective of the methods, they are an important feature of the company's internal control plan. Documents such as blank checks, company letterhead and signature stamps are items that require safeguarding. One may commonly overlook this.
Thus, to ensure good governance and compliance, a company should have effective internal controls in place.
VComply is a leading GRC platform that helps meet the demands of compliance professionals by helping them perform risk assessment and implement controls. It comes with built-in compliance frameworks that helps you automate the implementation of compliance controls.
When the internet and technology are the lifeblood of modern business operations, it is no wonder that data privacy has taken the center stage. According to a Pew Research Center report, 79% of consumers have raised concerns about personal data that organizations collect. These concerns have as much to do with discrimination and law as they do with ethics and policy. Across the EU, UK, USA, China, Singapore, and virtually every other location on the planet, the regulatory landscape for data privacy has changed and continues to evolve. In the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR enforceable in 2018) and its policies have effected change worldwide.
EU regulators and legislators indicated that businesses' almost laissez-faire approach toward data protection compliance had gone on for far too long and that the GDPR would rectify this. And it did. Today, the cost of data privacy infractions can amount to a hefty penalty of up to €20 million or 4% of the company's annual global turnover. Moreover, on account of the GDPR's broad territorial scope, it is regarded as a standard globally, and businesses invest heavily to keep up with the compliance regulations.
However, despite efforts, a report published by DLA Piper states that data breach fines and notifications between January 2020 and 2021 increased by 40% and 19%, respectively. Naturally, this double-digit growth isn't conducive to healthy business operation and implores the question, 'What can or should companies do to mitigate losses due to data privacy non-compliance?' For insight on the matter, read on to know how companies can prepare for the inevitable progression of GDPR or any other such data privacy laws and regulatory guidelines.
The first approach companies could take is to hire a data protection officer or DPO. This is a relatively new role for most institutions and should exist, especially considering how quickly regulatory reforms can occur. A data protection officer is a professional tasked with doing all the heavy lifting in ensuring that the organization remains compliant with the GDPR. As a matter of fact, it is a mandatory requirement by the GDPR that a company must hire a DPO if it handles personal data of EU residents.
Ideally, companies should look inwards at personnel working within the IT or legal departments for the role of DPO. A DPO's responsibilities often overlap with those of a Chief Data Officer and these professionals serve as viable candidates for the job. However, to be effective, it is important that the DPO receives formal training on GDPR. Organizations such as the Association of Data Protection Officers and the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) offer courses on data privacy and security. There is a talk that the GDPR will likely create entities that offer certification for such courses in the near future.
In a bid to save on costs, it is quite common for companies to take legacy systems forward with every passing year. While this may have worked a decade ago, it definitely won't in today's environment. Legacy systems used to track, enter, and monitor data make staying compliant difficult, especially when dealing with a breach. The solution here is to evaluate the efficacy of existing data management tools with today's standards.
A good starting point would be to get rid of systems that don't easily integrate with workflow automation. Manual inputs and processes increase the risk of noncompliance, and new-age tools can help address this problem. One smart and effective solution is the VComply GRC software suite. VComply allows you to establish a centralized data model, where a single repository of all critical documents may be maintained. This enables easy management, tracking and can aid quick breach redressal when dealing with risk data.
An effective way to stay ahead of GDPR changes is ensure that the current documentation is maintained with maximum accuracy and as per requirements. Under the GDPR, all data-intensive projects must have privacy impact assessment (PIA) documentation, which must be accessible to everyone involved in a project. This is non-optional as it is a process that accounts for all the privacy risk present with any data a company collects from consumers.
Ideally, a comprehensive PIA should be able to document all key data-related information. Here is a table that highlights the main verticals and the type of data that should be documented.
It comes as no surprise that data security is a key part of the GDPR compliance journey. To stay ahead of the ever-changing environment, companies should design all security measures with privacy as a priority. Common measures include creating workflows that govern data access, both on-site and remotely. As per the GDPR, an external data breach can even be a situation where an unvetted temporary employee is granted full access to data through a generic log in.
Such cases of unsecured data access can be solved by implementing clearly defined user access controls. Besides these, security measures extend to monitoring and logging. This is another branch of data collection, albeit internal, and should be handled in keeping with the GDPR.
Before the GDPR took hold, data privacy may have not been a key part of the risk assessment and management strategy. This needs to change in order to adapt to the modern-day requirements and data privacy should be given its fair share of importance within these protocols. This includes designing specific risk assessment models, having controls to mitigate risks, and understand the impact of these risks and the extent of their exposure.
Considering that the GDPR guidelines will continue to evolve with every passing year, it is safe to assume that companies will soon have to learn to adapt on the fly. These 5 measures should help prepare for many reforms, especially if the company has the right tools at its disposal. The VComply GRC software suite offers such a solution to organizations to map their data and efficiently implement controls to track and manage compliance with GDPR regulation. To address any queries or know more about the provision, contact us online.
A holistic GRC management is incomplete without policy management. In an ideal world, policies guide an organization to follow the rules and regulations, prepare for internal and external audits, and finally keep the organizations away from risks. However, the reality seems to be different. Many of the organizations seem to have only very basic policy management system in place. It can cause severe consequences as it leaves you at the risk for financial losses, security breaches, and overlook the improvement initiatives.
Let's see the major risks companies can face not implementing a full-blown policy management system, and how to avoid them.
Is the policy document approved? Who approved it? Are we distributing the approved version of the policy to employees? These are some of the common questions that we hear in organizations. Policies usually require multi-level approvals. There could be occurrences that the organizations' performance improvement initiatives can get delayed due to a missed approval.
VComply helps you set up workflows for multi-level approvals. Instead of manually sending a policy and wait at every turn for a manager to approve a policy and then send it to another level for approval, you can automate the whole approval process and configure parallel, round-robin, or sequential level of approval.
The lack of having a central repository can create chaos when it comes to working with multiple policies. The employees find it difficult to choose which version of the policy is to be followed in a manual set up. VComply encourages efficient policy management as all the policies are centrally located, saving employees' time retrieving the policy. VComply's policy portal helps ensure that your organization complies with laws and regulations, and helps share policies with your stakeholders for attestation or reference.
Organizations using disparate and disconnected systems for risk, compliance and policy management miss the integrated system's benefits. Compliance, Risks management, and Policy management share interrelated tasks and common objectives. Combining these processes, and establishing transparency and accountability requires an integrated and linked system.
VComply's GRC management is tightly coupled with policy management and helps implement proactive and risk-based policy management. It saves time, effort and money – and streamline the efforts required for managing risks, compliance, and policy management.
Every policy management workflow should define the policy owner and with whom the policy is intended to be shared and not. VComply's Workflow Management System should allow you to customize what each user can see and edit. It enables business-level control of access rights by using roles to match user permissions to the organization
A comprehensive policy management tool can alleviate the difficulties in creating and implementing policies. Cloud-based solutions like VComply’s Policy Management Software give you a powerful way to create, modify, distribute, and test policies. For instance, with VComply, you can create questionnaires to gauge the effectiveness of a policy, assign privileges to give proper access, have a convenient audit trail, get real-time alerts, and more. Policy is a crucial component of GRC and VComply offers a range of tools for governance, risk, and compliance management.
Having considered what a policy management process looks like and some reasons to invest in a policy management solution, deliberate on how to better govern your organization. Remember, the cost of bad policy management may far exceed that of investing in a policy management solution. So, when the time is right, do not think twice about using a smart software to empower your efforts!
The primary role of auditors is to help the organization remain compliant and meet its objectives efficiently. The growing and changing needs of stakeholders, crisis management requirements, and uncertainty have widened the scope of internal audits. In response to these requirements, new trends have emerged in the field of internal audit that will add value to the organization and guide it through the landscape of risks.
Here are some of the new trends in Internal Auditing:
Disruptions, threats, uncertainty, and changes are part of today's organizations. Starting from cyber-attacks, climate change to supply chain disruptions, organizations face numerous challenges. They need a resilient approach, frameworks, and mechanisms to bounce back when dealt with unexpected risks. Internal auditing should assume bigger responsibilities beyond just evaluating the company's compliance challenges, fraud detection, and reporting in this environment. Internal auditing should take on a central strategic role in an organization and provide insights to the management to run the organization efficiently. It should provide guidance to govern risks, stays compliant, and implement an operational resilience strategy.
The pandemic has forced companies to go remote. And, at least for some companies, the trend is remote from now on. Similar to other functions, audit functions need to resort to tools that overcome communication and availability challenges. The adoption of communication technologies enable audit evidence collection, review of records, and report generation to support audit conclusion. The companies must conduct risk assessment and document the outcomes achieved through remote auditing. Internal audit must take up a proactive role by giving insights concerning different risks, challenging practices, processes, and the organization's overall risk landscape.
Audit teams need to agile to keep up with the increasing pressures of the organizations. They should let go of their rigid practices and long audit cycles, instead, focus on the organization's present needs, respond to quickly to changing risks, adopt short and accelerated audit cycles, and fewer documentation requirements. Agile auditing empowers auditors to prioritize audits based on its importance and provide long standing value.
While many companies are looking at technology specific to audit function, others already invested in technology are expanding the role of automation and analytics. Audit automation simplify the process of constructing new audits and creating new checklists. It ensures that non-compliances and weak areas are properly addressed. Thanks to advanced machine learning techniques, auditors are gaining invaluable insights by accurately analyzing mass amounts of information, saving time and money. Meanwhile, advanced analytics can shed light on new risk patterns, anomalies, internal control gaps, or opportunities. They help internal auditors improve the scope and quality of their work, while also delivering better insights to stakeholders.
Organizations use GRC tools such as VComply to conduct audit programs, schedule audit checklists, and issue audit report. The advantage of such a tool is that you can monitor and improve upon control systems and areas of risk in an ongoing manner and in real time too. Moreover, you govern your business better as you are no longer working in silos and with spreadsheets, but organization-wide, with customized software. VComply, for instance, allows you to schedule tests, classify incidents, track progress and more. Now that you are aware of the basics of conducting an internal audit, venture forth to create a robust and consistent business process!
According to an analysis by Atlas VPN, credit card fraud cases surged by 104.7% when you compare Q1 of 2019 and 2020. Likewise, Julie Conroy, a research director at Aite Group, reported that by the end-2020, credit card fraud losses in the US amounted to a staggering $11 billion! These facts make it clear that the digital payment ecosystem is rife with vulnerabilities. After all, security gaps can emerge at various points of handling, storage, and transmission, such as at POS devices, e-commerce apps, Wi-Fi hotspots and personal computers.
To create a safer payment ecosystem, major players, namely, American Express, JCB, MasterCard, Visa, and Discover formed the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) and subsequently, a standard for data security, the PCI Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). The latest version of PCI DSS is v.3.2.1 and though PCI DSS is not a law, it is expected that the industry needs to be compliant with its requirements as non-compliance entails hefty fines and lost business opportunities and customers.
If you handle, store, process, or transmit credit card data you ought to be PCI DSS compliant. Moreover, your card processing agreement normally requires you to be so. Depending on how much sensitive information visits and resides in your systems, your compliance requirements could be more or less, complex or basic.
Achieving PCI DSS compliance entails adhering to 12 high-level requirements, and depending on your compliance needs, 300+ controls. Here is more on how to comply with PCI DSS.
PCI DSS compliance is validated against a list of PCI DSS requirements. Read on to know more.
Document a security policy: Protecting sensitive data is the responsibility of all employees and to set the right tone, PCI DSS requires that you establish, publish, maintain, and disseminate a security policy that educates personnel on what is needed from them.
Depending on your compliance level, you will determine which networks and components are in PCI DSS scope.
Assess system components within scope: Each PCI requirement has corresponding testing procedures, and at this stage you must check for compliance and identify gaps. Level 1 businesses need to conduct an onsite assessment and draft an Annual Report on Compliance (ROC). A Qualified Security Assessor or an internal auditor will be involved in the process. A QSA is a PCI-SSC-approved independent security organization that validates your business’ adherence to PCI DSS.
If you belong to Level 2-4, assess your compliance by filling out an annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). There are 9 SAQs and these comprise Yes-or-No questions for each PCI DSS requirement. You need to use the SAQ relevant to you only. Every quarter or less, businesses at all levels engage the services of an Approved Scanning Vector (ASV) to check for external scanning requirements of PCI DSS. Depending on the gaps present, you will need to adopt certain security controls and protocols. The 12 PCI DSS security requirements outlined above indicate how you should go about protecting sensitive information.
Report, attest, and submit: After assessing and taking remedial measures, documentation of the SAQ/ ROC and compensating controls occurs. You can then fill out a formal Attestation of Compliance (AOC) and have it verified by a QSA to show that you are in full compliance with PCI DSS. You can submit your SAQ, ROC, AOC, etc., to any organization requesting them with everything in order.
Remember, PCI DSS compliance is not a one-time task. It involves an ongoing process of assessing, repairing, and reporting. It requires you to bring together your legal, technology, finance, and security teams for a common purpose, and a software solution like VComply can help you manage and monitor the 300 odd security controls you may need to set in place. With it, you can easily delegate responsibilities, conduct gap analysis, generate reports, get prompt alerts, and more. With PCI DSS 4.0 slated to arrive in mid-2021, getting compliant today is the best thing you can do to prepare for the future. So, take steps towards securing your cardholder data environment and use VComply to accelerate your compliance efforts manifold!
Risk management is the process of identifying, assessing, and managing risks in an organization. In times of uncertainties, the organization looks to risk managers to make crucial decisions about risk management and mitigation. Risk officers are required to bring all stakeholders on the same page and decide on the organization's risk appetite. Risk appetite and risk tolerance are the two essential concepts in risk management around which misconceptions and confusion are prevalent.
Risk appetite is referred to as the degree of uncertainty or the level of risk an organization or individual is willing to accept in pursuit of achieving its objectives. If the organization is ready to take on significant risks, then its risk appetite is considered high. If an organization does not want to confront a situation that will affect the company's revenue and want to play safe, then the organization's appetite is supposed to be low.
Risk tolerance is the degree of risk that an organization can withstand. For example, if the management decides that the organization can take the financial risk up to 250, 000 USD, then the tolerance level is agreed about that much amount. Once the risk appetite and tolerance level has been defined, the risk managers can evaluate whether the existing risk framework is adequate. They need to adjust risk management strategies to keep the risks within the risk appetite.
A great understanding of risks and understanding about effectiveness of controls can add value to an organization. VComply’s risk management software provides a centralized system to determine and maintain a register of potential risks for the organization, and evaluate the impact of the risks, and implement controls for the treatment and mitigation of risks. Contact us to learn more about how VComply can help you manage your risks.
The importance of good corporate governance for an organization's success has been a topic discussed across. However, even though organizations keep in mind the principles, the different models and all the aspects of good governance, there is always scope for error and that is why issues in corporate governance are in abundance. Especially accountability issues. By now, we know how important accountability and transparency is in corporate governance. Let us look at some of the steps you could take against potential issues that you may have to face.
It is now well established that the board in any corporation plays a pivotal role in its governance, which is why care should be taken to not put undeserving, inexperienced people who are incapable of handling crucial situations and forming suitable solutions. So that everyone’s point of view is represented in the board, it is important to have a diverse group of people in the group with a healthy mix of ethnicities and men and women. Besides the board managing everything, it is important that the seriousness of the entire corporate governance business is ingrained in the corporate culture. Complying on paper is not enough; there should be visible, tangible compliance and subsequent results. Board appointments should be done by voting only and on the basis of talent and experience and not because of family contacts or influence. This will make sure that the board comprises of people who are dedicated towards working for the company’s cause and not just there for the sake of it.
The board also needs to be evaluated on the basis of their performance. The performance of directors as a group as well as individual performance need to be considered by elaborating on both qualitative aspects and quantitative aspects how they achieve objectives, how they handle ethical issues. Usually, these evaluations are called to be made public such that the results actually have an impact on the directors. However, such evaluations can become sensitive in nature and full public disclosure may turn out to negative impact on the organization.
Independent directors are accused for maintaining a passive stand regarding the board’s decisions. However, in cases where these directors have protested against promoter decisions, they have been removed for non compliance with the promoter and this is by law as it is stated that an independent director can be easily removed by promoters or majority shareholders. This inherent conflict has a direct impact on independence. Therefore, to make sure that directors are not just simply removed from the board, there needs to be a better evaluation system in place to justify the removal and the decision of the majority should be taken into account.
Directors have duties not only towards the corporation that they head and its stakeholders but also towards its employees, the community and the environment’s protection. These general duties need to be carried out by all directors, however the independent ones come across as complacent. This may be due to the lack of actual implementation. Therefore, to further propagate accountability, the entire board must be mandated to be present for all meetings with stakeholders to incite healthy camaraderie.
In some countries, the founder’s identity is often merged with the company’s identity in the sense that they identify as one and the same. The founder has immense control over the working of the company and can make or break any aspect of governance. There is a lack of succession planning and founders keep exercising their power to influence crucial decisions regarding the company. It is important that the founders chalk out a succession plan and implement it.
A risk management policy has always been imperative and has gained more importance over the years, especially in today’s world where big businesses are under the scrutiny of the media and other competitors. A proper risk management strategy needs to be chalked out and inculcated in the day to day workings of the company. The independent directors are mandated to assess the risk management systems of the company.
Today, everything is digitalized, and as much as it has an immense number of advantages, it also poses a great risk to the privacy of data. The board must be familiar with at least the basics of cyber security to protect the company against a potential data scandal. The board must invest a reasonable amount of time and money in order ensure the goal of data protection is achieved.
Companies that meet the specific criteria/thresholds are required to constitute a CSR committee from within the board. This committee goes on to frame a CSR policy. Companies are required to spend at least 2% of the average net profits of last three financial years on CSR activities. In case the expenditure is not carried out, proper justification needs to be provided. CSR is important and CSR projects should be managed by board with as much interest and vigor as any other business project of the company.
A good corporate governance system ensures transparency, fairness, and accountability. VComply offers a complete GRC management solution to help you streamline everyday compliance processes with a centrally managed, cloud-hosted system.
In the modern-day market and workplace, risk is a part and parcel of business operations. Considering the shift to remote working, threats and potential vulnerabilities are ever present, which is why risk management is now a top priority. As a matter of fact, in 2021, General Data Protection Regulation fines rose by around 40%. Big names like the Marriott and British Airways incurred fines of $23.8 million and $26 million, respectively, for data breaches. This is the cost of poor risk assessment and management controls in today’s economic climate. Thankfully, auditors and risk management teams can get ahead of such problem areas with clearly defined key risk indicators (KRIs).
Much like key performance indicators, KRIs offer invaluable insight for any organization. In this case of British Airways and Marriott, it is data that caused the potential weak spots of operation. In a competitive, fast-paced and ever-changing business environment, having clear KRIs is what helps a company work toward its goals without incurring the sting of noncompliance or breaches. However, simply establishing these indicators isn’t enough.
Even with a well-established KRI framework, there are challenges the company may still face. For instance, a common misconception is that KRIs are a plug-and-play fix to risk management and control. This is far from the truth when in fact, it is a system that constantly evolves to complement the company’s goals. Moreover, there is a serious lack of understanding concerning the relationship between KPIs and KRIs, which can be damaging.
For more insight into KRIs and their role in bettering business practices, read on.
Key risk indicators are metrics used to measure how risky any given activity is, especially when it concerns business objectives. This is a quantifiable approach to risk identification and monitoring that provides invaluable information needed for risk mitigation. Basically, KRIs help predict risks through data and is an effective way of establishing controls to prevent future exposure.
However, for KRIs to be as effective as intended, there are some conditions they have to meet. For instance, KRIs should be:
All things considered, KRIs are meant to comprehensively answer the question, ‘What factors can prevent the company from achieving its goals?’ This is the most basic, and simultaneously the most profound, objective of this tool.
KRIs form an integral part of any operational risk management framework and it serves several other purposes too. Some of the main reasons why KRIs are important are that they:
There are several different types of KRIs and not all required for building an effective framework. In fact, for better management, it may be wise to use KRIs that best suit the industry, thus allowing for more detailed risk analysis across the board. Ultimately, these indicators should align with both internal and external factors to offer maximum insight.
Here are some of the most common KRI types to be aware of.
Operational KRIs:
Closely linked to operational risk and the factors that cause such losses. Generally, operation KRIs could range from ineffective internal controls to process inefficiencies, internal failures, leadership changes, and changes to a given entity's strategic goals.
Human resource KRIs:
These KRIs are most commonly utilized by HR departments or companies that deal with staffing and recruitment. Common KRI options include labor shortages, high staff turnover, low staff satisfaction or low recruiting conversion.
Technological KRIs:
Tech-related KRIs are very common across most industries. These KRIs measure system failures, data breach incidents or regulatory changes.
Financial KRIs:
Such KRIs are common amongst banks, CPA firms and other such entities. External KRIs include regulatory changes, economic crashes or others, while internal measures include acquisitions, budget changes or changes in strategic goals.
While most companies will, and should, have varying KRIs, there may be ground for commonality when discussing its implementation. KRIs must be linked to company strategies and enforced systematically across systems. This is where a roadmap can help, as it offers guidance.
Here is an example of what a high-level roadmap should look like.
While the principle of creating KRIs may seem quite straightforward, the truth is it is quite a problem for most companies. Some of the common challenges include:
Considering the inherent dependency on data, right from its collection protocols to accessibility and meaningful interpretation, it isn’t shocking that technology has a crucial role to play in this scenario. Effective KRI frameworks rest on the shoulders of technological tools for optimal implementation. They help eliminate the need for manual input, automate key processes and simplify tracking. Simply put, they offer a great deal of benefits, provided they are well equipped. The VComply GRC software suite is one such provision designed to meet these specific needs.
Make risk assessment, management and mitigation a breeze with this all-in-one, intuitive platform. This tool empowers teams and enables them to operate at maximum efficiency. Risk teams can use it to collaborate freely with the workshop functionality and enforce controls to mitigate losses. To know more about the software suite, contact us online.
Today's organizations face a plethora of challenges managing compliance, keeping up with internal policies, and improving social security practices. Needless to say, that managing compliance and risk management programs manually is a painful task. Fortunately, there is an influx of software applications in the compliance and risk management space claiming to reduce compliance and risk managers' pain. However, an unintuitive GRC platform laden with poor user experience will only add to problems.
A compliance and risk management platform is a significant investment. How do you select a GRC tool? What is the importance of user experience when evaluating a GRC tool? These are some of the questions you need to seek answers to before selecting the tool. Just in the case of any other software, usability and user experience is the key. If the software is not usable and ignores user satisfaction, customer retention might not be easy.
There is a tendency to use the term user experience interchangeably with the user interface. The fact is that they are different. User interface refers only to the aesthetics of the software. User experience covers all aspects of the end-users interaction with a product, and the user interface is a part of it. The goal of a good user experience is to accomplish the exact needs of the customer without fuss. The best UX focuses on simplifying the functionality and improving the user's interaction with the product.
It should:
When there is a gap in the customers' expectations from a great GRC platform and your product offering, it turns into bad UX costs. If your customers encounter a bad experience, if they don't find what they need or can't reach someone, they will abandon the product and not come back. For example, if the user experience does not allow the user to create and assign a control quickly after a risk assessment, it fails the purpose of an effective GRC platform. If the compliance team cannot collaborate on a document or a compliance obligation, or the leadership team do not get enough insights from the reports or dashboards, it can lead to wasted efforts, time, and frustration. In some cases, it can even add up to their tasks.
The common characteristics of bad UX are:
Bad UX has a price. You should prevent users from experiencing negative emotions in their interaction with the platform and implement an optimal user experience. A good UX's goal concerning a GRC platform is to let various stakeholders do what they need to do and help your organization remain compliant and keep risks at bay. To achieve this, adopt a user-centered design approach, perform usability tests and envisage how users will use the application, identify mistakes, correct them. The next best way is to understand how your customers feel about your application. Ask for their feedback. Customer feedback forms and NPS are effective tools to measure and understand customers' overall satisfaction.
VComply pays special attention to usability and overall experience of the user. We place focus on the following aspects of the user experience:
Navigation :There is a popular quote within the designer circle "It doesn't matter how good your application is if users can't find their way around it." Giving potential customers access to the information they want in the easiest way possible is the key. We keep our navigation and user experience simple, thereby reducing the friction points and making the experience enjoyable. For example, VComply makes it very easy to create or oversee a control associated with a SOC2 or GDPR framework.
Familiarity : We use a familiar approach in design and use simple and familiar elements within our interface. We have made it intuitive so that even first-time users should be able to use it easily.
Consistency: We kept our interface consistent across the VComply platform as it makes it easy for users to identify and familiarize themselves with the usage patterns.
Flexibility and efficiency: VComply knows the exact needs of its customers and their intents. Flexibility refers to allowing each type of customer to do what they need. For example, VComply allows an executive to know his compliance task on a particular day and a compliance officer to oversee a task or gain insights on overall compliance performance. When it comes to efficiency, the platform allows users to fulfill their tasks effortlessly and derive great value out of its features.
Legacy GRC tools aren't equipped or efficient enough to keep pace with the new-age user experience, which should be seen as a risk. Remember, compliance is considered an on-going process, and your tools should also embody that attribute. The ability to evolve and proactively adapt to an enjoyable user experience should be a functionality that the GRC tool offers. The VComply suite is equipped to address this need and does so seamlessly to successful compliance efforts.
