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Beyond the Pandemic: Better Business Performance


Accelerate Sustainable Growth With Risk-aware Decisions

In many ways, the pandemic has been brutal. But it has also compelled organizations to adapt quickly, innovate, and build resilience. Underlying it is the awareness that to succeed in a post-COVID-19 era, we will need to stay one step ahead of risks. COVID-19 may have been a novel disruption, but it certainly won’t be the last. We’re already looking at the threat of a recession, ongoing cyber-attacks, and catastrophic natural disasters. How can businesses thrive and catalyze performance in this risky world? Here are a few key steps.


Align Risk Management to Performance

Risk management will play a key role in driving and guiding business performance in the future. Decision-making processes will increasingly integrate a rigorous assesment of risks. Risk findings will also be aligned much more closely to resilience and strategic objectives, so that when the next global crisis comes—because it will—organizations will be better prepared to respond and pivot quickly.

This renewed focus on risk management will be especially important in dealing with changes in business models that we’re likely to see in a post COVID-19 world. Some companies may shift to a permanent remote working model. Others may replace physical customer interactions with virtual or self-service options. Most will accelerate digital transformation, investing in AI, automation, and analytics.

With these shifts will come new risks and regulations. To manage them effectively, companies will need strong risk and control foundations with streamlined workflows, consistent risk taxonomies, and integrated risk visibility. As risk management becomes more deeply embedded in business processes, it will enable a more nuanced, thoughtful, and sustainable approach to business growth.


Predict to Prevent

COVID-19 has taught us that we cannot afford to wait till it’s too late to identify and respond to a risk. “Predict to prevent” will be the new mantra, as business leaders leverage AI and other emerging technologies to anticipate and mitigate emerging risks proactively.

Advanced analytics will be used to filter through mountains of data and uncover risk insights for decision-making. AI engines will automatically filter internal and external feeds to identify potential risk trends.

Meanwhile, continuous auditing and risk monitoring, enabled by robotic process automation, will make it easier to detect anomalies. Stress testing will be accelerated to help risk teams proactively define action plans and early risk indicators.

Uncertainty and disruption may continue to dog businesses. But with comprehensive, forward-looking risk intelligence, organizations can be better-prepared to land on their feet despite disruptions.


An Intuitive, Automated Approach

MetricStream empowers business users with simple solutions to intuitively identify, assess, and mitigate risks, while also strengthening compliance with regulations and standards. Our solutions automate and streamline GRC processes, while providing rich risk insights for decision-making. They also break down silos, enabling the front line to seamlessly collaborate and share information with the second and third lines of defense. Powerful observation management tools make it easy for the front line to capture and report irregularities or red flags, thus preventing risk events before they occur.

Empowering everyone through inclusive technology, enabling all employees and third parties across the extended enterprise to participate in GRC initiatives in a personalized manner.
 

GRC a Key Strategy Business Function


Accelerate Sustainable Growth With Risk-aware Decisions

The Growth of GRC

GRC, once a function that was managed independent from the rest of the business, is now a key strategic business function. There are several reasons why we believe it has become such a growth market:
 

  • Increasingly complex regulatory requirements, legal obligations, standards, and policies that, if not complied with, could cause significant reputational and financial loss.
     
  • The growing volume, variety, and velocity of risks that could hinder the achievement of strategic objectives.
     
  • Digital disruptions and new business models that introduce new risks while also amplifying the impact of existing risks.
     
  • An exponential increase in data volumes on security threats, risk, compliance, and issues which require quick analysis to draw out insights for decision-making.
     
  • Limitations of traditional GRC tools like spread sheets which result in redundancies, overwhelming complexity, and insufficient risk visibility.

Driving Success and Resilience

With an integrated approach to GRC, organizations can:
 

  • Gain real-time, high quality risk insights to make intelligent business decisions faster.
     
  • Simplify compliance, and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.
     
  • Integrate and map disparate GRC data points in a single source of truth to provide context, understand risk relationships, and respond proactively.
     
  • Strengthen reputation, resilience, and credibility by staying one step ahead of risks.
     
  • Streamline and automate GRC processes to close gaps, minimize redundancies, and reduce costs.

GRC Areas in Focus Since Covid-19

 

EH&S Management

 

IT GRC/ Security Management

 

Operational Resilience (BCM and Risk Management)

 

Policy & Training Management

 

Third-Party GRC Management

 

Predict to Prevent: AI and GRC

“With the three lines of defense, there used to be three sources of truth. But today with advances in GRC technology, there is just one source of truth – the machine.”

Insights from the CXO Roundtable, GRC Summit 2019

With AI, ML, and advanced analytics, we can predict and prevent risk events before they occur. We can scour through massive volumes of big data from inside and outside the organizations to uncover risk patterns and control weaknesses. We can connect the dots between thousands of issues to identify the best remediation actions. We can enable continuous control monitoring to detect anomalies before they spiral into bigger problems. These advancements will enable GRC to deliver greater value.

On the flipside as well, GRC can be leveraged to embed good governance, accountability, and transparency into AI applications. It can help minimize the risk of AI bias and discrimination, helping ensure that AI engineering is responsible and trustworthy.


An Intuitive, Automated Approach

MetricStream empowers business users with simple solutions to intuitively identify, assess, and mitigate risks, while also strengthening compliance with regulations and standards.

Our solutions automate and streamline GRC processes, while providing rich risk insights for decision-making. They also break down silos, enabling the front line to seamlessly collaborate and share information with the second and third lines of defense.

Powerful observation management tools make it easy for the front line to capture and report irregularities or red flags, thus preventing risk events before they occur.

Empowering everyone through inclusive technology, enabling all employees and third parties across the extended enterprise to participate in GRC initiatives in a personalized manner.
 

GRC Is Everyone’s Responsibility: Taking GRC to the Front Lines


Accelerate Sustainable Growth With Risk-aware Decisions

Gone are the days when GRC duties were relegated primarily to the second and third lines of defense. Today, the focus has shifted to the front line because it is there that risks are taken, and therefore, where the consciousness around risk management and compliance needs to be pervasive. Since the front line is closest to the risks, they are often better positioned than an intermediary risk function to anticipate and assess their own risks, while also managing their own compliance with regulations, laws, and policies.

Greater ownership of GRC by the front line helps organizations gain better control over risks and minimize both regulatory and reputational issues. It also reduces the need for costly and complex risk monitoring processes.


Empowering the Front Line to Own GRC

New generations of GRC solutions are increasingly being designed for the front lines. These easy-to-use tools can be quickly adopted without extensive training or knowledge of GRC terminologies. The best of them combine technology and industry content with AI and analytics to make GRC an integral, almost seamless part of day-to-day business activities.

Think desk traders who receive automatic alerts on the policy and compliance implications of a financial trade in real time. Think business travelers who, upon entering a new country, can instantly pull up all the required local policies and behavioral expectations on their GRC mobile app. Think remote workers who are automatically notified with a cybersecurity checklist to keep them vigilant about security risks when working from home. The key is to ensure that GRC is deeply ingrained into business processes.

But GRC is ultimately a two-way street. As much as it is about enabling front-line users with tools to manage their risks and compliance, it’s also about harnessing intelligence from the front-line of emerging risks and hidden areas of concern to facilitate proactive risk responses. We’re seeing the development of chatbots that can capture front-line observations of potential incidents, issues, and control weaknesses—all through a casual conversation with the business user in natural business language. These insights are then rolled up to the second and third lines of defense for deeper investigation and response.

The possibilities of GRC technology in the front line are numerous. And the easier these tools make it for business users to manage and report risks, the better the organization’s ability to accelerate risk-aware decisions.


An Intuitive, Automated Approach

MetricStream empowers business users with simple solutions to intuitively identify, assess, and mitigate risks, while also strengthening compliance with regulations and standards.

Our solutions automate and streamline GRC processes, while providing rich risk insights for decision-making. They also break down silos, enabling the front line to seamlessly collaborate and share information with the second and third lines of defense.

Powerful observation management tools make it easy for the front line to capture and report irregularities or red flags, thus preventing risk events before they occur.

Empowering everyone through inclusive technology, enabling all employees and third parties across the extended enterprise to participate in GRC initiatives in a personalized manner.
 

Emerging From The Known Unknown


Accelerate Sustainable Growth With Risk-aware Decisions

The global pandemic has been an eye-opener into what can happen when organizations aren’t prepared for new, emerging risks. Here are 5 key steps that GRC functions and business leaders can take to build stronger, better, and more risk-prepared businesses.
 

Develop a Peripheral View of Risks

No longer will organizations focus only on the most obvious risks. They will also incorporate a “peripheral” view of risk data by paying more attention to non-traditional risk factors such as biological hazards, climate change, and geopolitics. At the center of these efforts will be the GRC hub -- a central, cloud-based console of risk intelligence. The hub will integrate data from numerous internal and external sources to offer organizations a truly 360-degree, real-time picture of their risks picture of their risks for better decision-making.
 

Build an Antifragile Business

Organizatons will emerge from this crisis in different ways. Some will focus on building resilience, while others will find a way to become antifragile. The resilient business resists shocks but stays the same. However, the antifragile business gets better. To build anti-fragility, organizations will need to break down risk silos, so that they can understand how various risks impact and influence each other. They will also need strong business continuity plans to be prepared. We can’t always predict every risk, but we can be ready to ride it out.
 

Gear Up for High-velocity Risks

With risks hitting organizations faster than ever, leadership teams need real-time, forward-looking risk intelligence rather than retrospective information. AI and analytics can help by swiftly consolidating, comparing, and cross-referencing data to unearth potential issues and opportunities. This can help businesses stay one step of risks. The speed of decision-making will be a key competitive differentiator. Those organizations that have predictive, real-time risk assessments embedded into their strategic decision-making processes will stan to gain.
 

Rethink Priorities Across the Lines of Defense

The need for dynamic, real-time risk assessments has blurred the barriers between the lines of defense. Today, all the lines must work together swiftly to catalyze business performance. Leadership teams need to respond quickly to risks like a cyberattack or a global pandemic. Therefore, the second and third lines of defense are likely to become more automated. Meanwhile, the front line will take on a bigger role in identifying and assessing risks. Their insights will help business leaders stay updated on new emerging risks.
 

Focus on Value

With risks hitting organizations faster than ever, leadership teams need real-time, forward-looking risk intelligence rather than retrospective information. AI and analytics can help by swiftly consolidating, comparing, and cross-referencing data to unearth potential issues and opportunities. This can help businesses stay one step of risks. The speed of decision-making will be a key competitive differentiator. Those organizations that have predictive, real-time risk assessments embedded into their strategic decision-making processes will stan to gain.
 

An Intuitive, Automated Approach

MetricStream empowers business users with simple solutions to intuitively identify, assess, and mitigate risks, while also strengthening compliance with regulations and standards. Our solutions automate and streamline GRC processes, while providing rich risk insights for decision-making. They also break down silos, enabling the front line to seamlessly collaborate and share information with the second and third lines of defense. Powerful observation management tools make it easy for the front line to capture and report irregularities or red flags, thus preventing risk events before they occur.

Empowering everyone through inclusive technology, enabling all employees and third parties across the extended enterprise to participate in GRC initiatives in a personalized manner.
 

GRC Delivers The Right Tone From the Top


Accelerate Sustainable Growth With Risk-aware Decisions

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) concerns are becoming a top agenda item for every Board of Directors. It is now necessary to discuss how ESG functions can be effectively and efficiently managed via three key factors: Technology, Culture and the right ‘Tone at the Top’. Today, there are more business risks than ever, incluiding financial crises, globalization, cyber breaches, pandemics and climate change. To succeed, CEOs and Board members must learn to navigate the expanding risk universe with a risk-aware mindset.
 

Having the Right Tone at the Top

Boards need to assess their readiness to adapt to the rapidly changing business requirements. An effective and agile ESG Performance Framework can help the Board look at the total impact of a company’s ESG strategy and Operations. Equipped with real-time and accurate data, the Board and C-suite can have a far better understanding of the company’s ESG Performance. The Board needs to ascertain that senior management and the C-Suite are systematically monitoring ESG performance, looking for ways to turn Governance, Risk and Compliance into a competitive advantage, and regularly reporting to the Board on the status of ESG performance.

When Risk Management and Compliance are looked at as a competitive advantage rather than a check-the-box activity; that’s when companies can harness risk to drive growth, stay in alignment with sustainability processes, deliver on social impact commitments, and build trust and a positive relationship with customers, employees, investors, partners, suppliers and other key stakeholders.
 

GRC Delivers the Right Tone From the Top

Boards are facing strong scrutiny by regulatory bodies, shareholders and other key stakeholders. These issues require Board Directors to demonstrate leadership in developing a strong culture of GRC throughout their corporations. They can only accomplish this by governance principles, commanding strong compliance oversight, and developing acceptable risk postures.

Boards are responsible for creating and overseeing company policies. This isn’t one-and-done activity. Policy management requires organizing and archiving documents so that boards can review them in relation to mandates, business objectives, risks and controls. Policies also need to be avaliable to employees and business partners, as necessary.

GRC solutions make accessing policy documents easy and efficient. GRC solutions automate compliance management functions such as workflow, controls and associated risks, surveys, self-assessments, reporting, testing and remediation. This includes financial reporting to regulatory authorities and compliance with industry regulations.

GRC solutions help organizations adapt changes with regard to business disruptions, such as:

 

Cyer threats

 

Financial crises

 

Operational factors

 

Environmental factors

 

Geopolitical factors

 

How Businesses Are Exposed Without an Integrated GRC Platform

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) concerns are becoming a top agenda item for every Board of Directors. It is now necessary to discuss how ESG functions can be effectively and efficienlty managed via three key factors: Technology, Culture and the right ‘Tone at the Top’.

Today, there are more business risks than ever, incluiding financial crises, globalization, cyber breaches, pandemics, and climate change. To succeed, CEOs and Board members must learn to navigate the expaning risk universe with a risk-aware mindset.

MetricStream’s simple purpose-built platform is proven with over a million global users. The platform is designed to serve integrated GRC use cases across industries and is infused with deep domain expertise, embedded content, rich context, integrated data and explainable AI. We empower customers to intuitively harness real-time risk intelligence across the extended enterprise.

Empowering everyone through inclusive technology, enabling all employees and third parties across the extended enterprise to participate in GRC initiatives in a personalized manner.

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