IT leaders at every organization shoulder the responsibility of achieving their business goals ethically while also managing risks and compliance across an ever-changing technology stack. GRC (Governance, risk management, and compliance) practices are key to achieving the right balance between both priorities. GRC isn't a new idea by any means. It has been used in enterprises of varied sizes for years. However, the traditional GRC approach left something to be desired.

With the rapidly changing technology landscape and a myriad of regional cybersecurity and compliance laws and regulations, traditional GRC strategies aren't cutting it anymore. Siloed GRC strategies in each vertical like legal, finance, and IT are counter-productive and sub-optimal since executives don't get complete visibility into third-party risks. The lack of visibility can lead to financial loss, loss of prestige, along with business disruption, while the inability to meet compliance thresholds can lead to massive fines and legal prosecution.

Today, it is necessary to employ an integrated GRC approach across all verticals in an enterprise so executives can have complete visibility regarding all risks and make sure they are achieving business objectives ethically without cutting corners on compliance. Integrated GRC also helps enterprises reduce assurance costs significantly by assisting them to stay prepared to address emerging risks and constantly changing compliance and technology requirements.

The risk of non-compliance

GRC can be a costly failure if the approach isn't right. Siloed GRC doesn't provide the complete picture of compliance and risk. And, with the ever-changing digital landscape, it's hard to keep up with changes to policies and laws and a growing number of risks. This is where integrated GRC tools come to the rescue. These cloud-based tools can help bring all the stakeholders on the same page regarding risk, compliance, and periodic targets.

Stakeholders can create policies and controls and align them with organizational goals and compliance. Executives across various verticals can genuinely collaborate, and with the help of actionable insights, to  quickly attend to any risks of non-compliance.

GRC solutions are pretty beneficial for any organization. An effective GRC solution can easily visualize risks and provide tips on evading them. The right tool will also constantly check for any non-compliance and notify stakeholders in real-time to avoid high penalties and litigation.

GRC solutions also tend to be customizable and can be automated to take care of tedious manual work like compliance policy updates and risk remediation, boosting teams' productivity. GRC tools can easily integrate with an enterprise's existing technology stack and help stakeholders move faster without missing a beat. Ultimately, an ideal GRC solution takes care of all the manual processes empowering your organization to focus on critical business goals.

Without a GRC tool, organizations can waste excessive time implementing an efficient GRC strategy. If a GRC is not a part of the GRC approach, organizations will be riddled with non-compliance and lack of proper visibility and control. This makes GRC tools vital to any organization.

Top 15 Best GRC Tools

The GRC market is swarming with tools with all sorts of incredible features. It's easy for organizations to hunt for the right tool to get befuddled. Here is a list of some tools organizations can consider for their GRC implementation.

1. MetricStream

MetricStream provides advanced GRC solutions that help organizations keep up with modern risks and constant regulatory changes. MetricStream's GRC tool has recently released a new update to its solution, enhancing its risk assessment and compliance management abilities.

This solution is built on top of MetricStream Intelligence, an advanced AI engine that uses data science tools and multiple scoring models to assess and quantify risks. MetricStream quantifies risk in terms of the currency that helps the board understand the actual cost of each risk. MetricStream also allows teams to run simulations of risk scenarios to strategize risk management effectively.

This solution also provides a list of top risks an organization is facing in a single view giving all stakeholders the information they need to evade threats on the 1st and 2nd line of defense. Another critical feature is MetricStream's ability to visualize the effect of regulatory changes on risks, policies, and controls across the entire organization.

2. Argon

While not your typical GRC solution, we included Argon on this list because, increasingly, cyber risk is presenting itself in the software development lifecycle.

Argon's end-to-end supply chain security platform scans your entire software supply chain to provide actionable insights on risks and compliance. This solution ensures compliance by enforcing security best practices and provides real-time alerts and remediation in case of any deviation.

Argon discovers all of the organization's assets and provides a single view to track progress. This solution can also seamlessly integrate with various tools in the supply chain to provide teams with unparalleled visibility.

Argon's always on risk detection constantly scans for any risks and helps mitigate these risks in real-time before leading to business disruption. Argon's best-in-class compliance management feature prioritizes and automates remediation of alerts and boosts productivity across the organization.

GRC is becoming increasingly important, and with the constant changes in the digital landscape, it is necessary for organizations of all sizes. There are plenty of solutions that address modern GRC challenges. However, innovation in this space is extremely rapid, and it will be interesting to watch what the future holds.

3. Fusion

Fusion risk and compliance is a cloud-based GRC solution that's available as an add-on with the Salesforce platform. Fusion framework helps organizations visualize risks and compliance violations using predictive analysis.

With Fusion, teams can visualize the entire functionality map, including dependencies on third and fourth-party tools, to get an accurate risk analysis. The board can assess the impact due to risks and non-compliance while considering all the dependencies. Users can draw data from various places to get the overall view of the organization's policies and control. Teams can use this easy-to-use solution to visualize the business from the customers' perspective to provide practical, actionable insights.

4. SAI360

SAI Global's GRC offering, SAI360, is a customizable tool that can address the business needs of various organizations. This solution helps organizations meet compliance regulations and empowers users with automated workflows.

SAI360 monitors third-party access to an organization's systems and alerts stakeholders in case of potential disruption. This solution provides deep risk intelligence and helps the board mitigate risks efficiently. Automated workflows help teams address any compliance violations in real-time. SAI360 also provides educational features to help facilitate a compliance-first culture among employees of an organization with the help of training.

5. Enablon

Enablon is an effective tool for risk and compliance management. It allows users to use the bow-tie functionality to identify the risks and develop the best set of controls to avoid said risks.

Enablon creates comprehensive reports on an organization's risk and compliance posture and empowers teams to take the right actions to evade non-compliance. Enablon lets teams download necessary data in several formats across various databases . Teams can compile the data for multiple modules and get consistent insights.  Enablon comes with advanced audit and control management features to avoid any surprises. Enablon also undertakes incident and business continuity management to help get your business back to normal if an incident does occur.

6. StandardFusion

StandardFusion is an easy-to-use solution that can help teams strengthen their GRC strategy effectively. This solution provides a 360-view of risks and their potential impact by letting teams make the best decisions to evade said risks. StandardFusion has a robust user interface that makes it easy to visualize non-compliance.

StandardFusion also provides users with comprehensive user guides and in-person training so teams can uncover the full potential of this solution. StandardFusion also includes support through dedicated success managers.

The pricing for two users starts at $750 with a free trial available.

7. LogicManager

The LogicManager platform allows teams to mine for data and create reports to assess risk and compliance properly.

Real-time risk management and reporting help teams address risks before any impact. LogicManager's risk management consultants provide users with unlimited risk management support through personalized training and on-call support. This centralized risk management solution helps teams get the insights they need to prevent risks for all verticals.

8. Riskonnect

This solution helps you extract data from different sources and combines this data into datasets that are used to draw actionable insights into an organization's risk and compliance posture.

Riskonnect allows stakeholders to develop efficient audit plans and facilitates internal audits to uncover risks and con-compliance within various verticals inside their organization. The efficient risk management capabilities help teams identify risks at the enterprise and third-party levels. This tool also offers effective claims administration and compliance management.

9. ServiceNow GRC

ServiceNow's GRC solution provides a unified data platform through mobile apps, chats, and portals. Users can retrieve custom performance metrics to get actionable insights that matter to them.

ServiceNow provides a powerful yet simplified user interface that helps them collaborate with internal and external teams. Users can also benefit from predictive analysis and real-time vendor risk management.

10. LogicGate Risk Cloud

LogicGate risk cloud is a comprehensive solution that uncovers all the potential risks and impacts of said risks so teams can revisit their risk management posture.

LogicGate looks for all the vulnerabilities in an organization to collect an aggregated list of all the risks it faces. Teams can use this tool to collaborate and efficiently manage risks and compliance throughout the organization. LogicGate also comes with several integrations that make it quite flexible. Teams can also choose the pricing tier that works for their organization .

11. Reflectiz

Again, not a classic GRC solution. However, as the risk landscape is changing so should GRC. Reflectiz efficiently manages client-side risks and compliance across various domains to help enterprises get an accurate view of their supply chain. Teams can leverage this tool for real-time risk assessment and remediation.

Reflectiz empowers risk management teams by providing a complete inventory of all the involved parties so teams can understand risks to their system. With website security compliance management, stakeholders can enforce privacy policies and comply with changing regulations. Reflectiz also provides digital vendor risk management so teams can see all the risks and the potential impact.

12. Polar Security

As cyber attacks are increasingly moving to attack the Cloud based infrastructure so must GRC solutions move to focus on the Cloud servers' data workloads. Polar is a data security and compliance that monitors Cloud based data storage. Its automated functionality delivers a perpetual and automated level of security that is easy to maintain and manage.

Solutions like Polar compliment the more traditional GRC solutions and enable software developments to maintain productivity without compromising on security.

13. OneTrust GRC

The OneTrust GRC is an agile platform that empowers stakeholders to manage risks while enforcing compliance with hundreds of privacy laws around the globe. The OneTrust platform is user-friendly and allows teams to scale their GRC across three lines of defense.

With out-of-the-box control frameworks, stakeholders can easily customize this tool to fulfill their business needs. OneTrust also provides numerous integrations so teams can make the most out of their GRC strategy. Teams can leverage this solution to identify, assess, and mitigate internal and external risks to the organization. Teams can also develop policies and perform audits.

14. SpectralOps

SpectralOps is a security solution that protects an organization's data and CI/CD workflows. SpectralOps scans all the assets, even those out of sight. SpectralOps secures data placed in public-facing repositories, thereby mitigating risk and non-compliance.

With this solution, teams can uncover risks inside the logging framework. SpectralOps ensures that the logs are compliant with the latest data privacy regulations. SpectralOps integrates with an organization's technology stack and helps scan shadow resources and discover security blind spots.

15. CybeReady

CybeReady's security awareness platform helps organizations usher in a security-first culture. Organizations can use the platform to comply with security training regulations set in different regions. With this solution, organizations can customize security training based on the region and risk groups.

CybeReady allows teams to create policies and enforce them across their organizations by providing the employees relevant training to help them understand said policies. The stakeholders are always ready for audit with quickly generated compliance reports.organized manner. Download this checklist to plug any loopholes in your API security strategy. This checklist will also help teams truly collaborate and deliver products that aren't just up to the mark, functionally, but are also secure.