Governance 🦅 

Much alike our government, this word underneath the acronym is the framework in which your department sets guidelines and policies. A lot of company focus is focused is placed on defining how employees handle their positions, setting examples for resolution, and establishing oversight to fulfil management. It is important to note that this is where the tone of the business is set and where ethics and integrity is enforced.

The leadership managing the company within this framework can consist of various hierarchies. They can consist of a boards of directors, executives, committees, and it’s substitutes. Responsibility from there is placed into various disciplines so they can provide proper expertise to a given situation.

A body without it’s brain is similar to a company without it’s executives. Without governance, many of the companies we’re exposed to daily would not exist. You cannot take a shifting market and a rapidly changing business and expect to ‘wing’ it.

Risk Management

Risk management is assigned the main job of identifying risks, finding ways to combat them, and disseminating that information across the organization. Their first objective is to begin gathering internal information to assess their capabilities and requirements. With the full backing of their company, security is empowered to formulate protection plans to fulfill their assigned role.

Once policies, lessons, and regulations are set in place, it is now time to tackle incoming threats. The teams assigned to this role typically do not remain passive and wait for attacks. They will simulate events, again and again, until they understand the implications behind what occurred and how to prevent it.

While not at the forefront of most businesses, the unsung protectors that practice this framework are responsible for keeping their great images. The question is now, who holds these teams accountable?

Compliance 👁️‍🗨️ 

We’ve covered the leadership, the security, and we can’t forget about legal. The teams that operate under the compliance side of GRC stress over it’s legal standing. You’ll find that lawyers and HR tend to be mentioned the most when discussing compliance.

While the responsibilities here overlap with both risk management and governance, this is more focused on the development of said policies that the other two enforce. Legal helps both teams understand where the line is and what is acceptable to appeal to both consumers and government laws.

Remember, following Risk Management policies and those in Governance allows the company to have their compliance guideline. All three of these functions come together to form the Framework that is GRC.

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