Thrive on Risk by Harnessing the Power of the GRC Community

Introduction

Here in the UK during the last few months, we’ve seen a flurry of events announced. Whether in person or virtually, people are truly wanting to maximize interactions and learn from their peers. At MetricStream, we have been at the forefront when it comes to providing a platform for professionals to connect and help facilitate conversations. This enables discussion around various problems their organization is facing, concerns they have, and subjects they’d like to discuss further.

We’ve recently hosted a few peer-to-peer events and heard from attendees about their take on current industry happenings. Now we’re approaching our next event! This one is slightly larger than a peer-to-peer event but the excitement doesn’t wane. For the past 9 years, our flagship event, the GRC Summit has consistently provided opportunities for the GRC community to connect, share insights, exchange best practices, and most importantly—look to what's next in GRC. As we enter our 10th year, our commitment to building connections remains strong.

Bringing the Industry Together

While MetricStream may host these events, our primary goal is to connect industry practitioners. These events offer the mechanism to form a community of experts, learn from their specific circumstances, develop their professional network, share trends, inspire others and discuss all things GRC.

Of course, there are other benefits to us being a part of such events. GRC events offer a forum where we can have interactive, candid, and engaging conversations with our customers, prospects, and others from the GRC community to understand their pain points, requirements, and thoughts on key trends. It helps us stay close to key market trends and needs. These insights provide us with validated information which in turn helps us improve our products and solutions.

The GRC System is Only as Good as the Data Input

The foundation of GRC is the data—the data that you track, the controls that are managed, and the reporting of adherence to these controls. The processes become incredibly difficult when they are not in a format that talks to each other and are easy to update.

Some of the conversations that we’ve had point to the importance of not only having the proper systems in place but also that these systems are only as useful as the data in them. At a recent peer-to-peer event, we had one attendee mention how important it was to ensure that “when you accurately update your data, that it automatically updates the relevant systems” and “having too many manual Excel documents creates issues with maintenance and updating”. Another attendee mentioned how “If you haven’t got everything being entered in the same way, it can completely skew the results”. Right data, right time, and right use are integral to a GRC system. Quality data forms a foundational step with GRC activities before you even look for a solution. You cannot make a process better if you cannot track the success and metrics around it.

Collaboration is a Huge Differentiator

While technology has always been seen as an enabler, participants confirmed the importance of both ‘culture and education’. The education piece is hugely important in organizations alongside driving a risk-aware culture from the top. It’s also important to remember that educating staff on how to adhere to certain policies and their relevant confines ensures they are better prepared to tackle issues that may arise and deal with them in a compliant manner.

Another attendee brought up the important discussion point that “we’re all human beings but how do we share the knowledge”. Sharing of knowledge sounds easy but without a safe forum to discuss these important topics, our lessons learned don’t get shared. Collaboration for the greater good can be a huge differentiator. Take things you learn, share what you’ve learned – and keep the ball rolling.

What GRC Industry Events Enable:

• Place to talk about industry happenings and make sense of things collectively
• Time to discuss implementation with peers and the errors where businesses listened too much to users and over-customized software
• Discussions around the importance of finding the right balance between business needs and best practices
• Ability to gain new ideas because people may know things you don’t
• Take recommendations from peers that may help improve processes in ways beyond what you originally thought possible

There is no doubt that we all have been on a journey together supporting each other as the GRC landscape gets more intense and has emerged as a critical business imperative. At MetricStream, we believe in the power of the GRC community and the power of connection. Our events are designed to help you move beyond just managing risk to embracing it, and ultimately thriving on risk. It's a catalyst to implementing solutions that work for the entire organization, from the risk office to the front line, delivering a connected, single source of truth to business leaders.

Have You Registered for the 2022 GRC Summit in London?

MetricStream’s flagship event, the GRC Summit, will be held in person on the 8th and 9th of November 2022, at the Royal Garden Hotel, London. As we celebrate our 10th year, we have chosen our GRC Summit theme to be Experience the Power of Connection. Join the 2-day event that will host 60+ sessions from 50+ speakers.
 

Top highlights include:

• Keynotes from Industry Leaders
• Innovation Sessions
• Customer Success Stories
• Deep Dive Workshops
• GRC Journey Awards

Come, meet us at the GRC Summit in London! Register Now.