GRC tools have truly come of age in the past few years. There was a time when GRC solutions were clunky pieces of software which were hard to implement for businesses and cost millions of dollars to implement. Even though these solutions were so complicated, they did not really provide too much of a benefit and were only beneficial for very large businesses which had a lot of governance, risk, and compliance workloads. However, like all technologies, the price of GRC solutions has gone down, and their usefulness has increased significantly. That is why this is the perfect time for businesses to invest in GRC solutions.
Decreasing Costs and Increasing Features
GRC solutions were so expensive because they required a lot of hardware and maintenance to run. Any software solution requires maintenance as well as hardware if they are being implemented on premise. This is a very important distinction, and every business owner needs to understand why on-premises is no longer the smart approach to take for any sort of technology Implementation. Cloud solutions have significantly decreased the investment required for cutting edge GRC solution that quickly starts delivering ROI (return on investment).
A decade or two ago, when a business wanted to implement a GRC solution, it would first have to pay millions of dollars to buy a solution which it can use. That was not the end of it, because there were a lot of other expenses attached to be able to actually use the solution which the company had already paid for. Once they had paid for the solution, they would also have to pay the implementation team which would travel from the vendor's office to their office in order to implement the solution. If the implementation was enterprise wide, it was common for companies to pay for a whole team to travel and stay in the same city where the company was located.
Cloud solutions eliminate this problem completely. It is very simple to understand why such costs are eliminated by cloud solutions - since the solution is on the cloud, there is no reason for their team to have to travel anywhere in order to perform maintenance on the solution. It is common to have a single expert present on premise who will coordinate with the rest of the team that will be working from the vendors office but as businesses are becoming more comfortable with technology implementations many are completely forgoing such travel as well.
GRC Implementations During the Pandemic
The recent pandemic has also significantly increased the usefulness of cloud solutions. there is no safe way to implement an on-premises solution while maintaining social distancing. However, there are no such roadblocks to implementing a cloud solution because the engineers and developers that will be implementing the cloud solution can work from home easily since everything is being done on the cloud.
This is also a major benefit for users of cloud solutions. The pandemic caused many businesses to shutter down because they could not ensure that everyone would be safe working from the office. Many governments across the world have also told businesses to ensure that as many employees as possible from home to stop the spread of the virus. Businesses that were using an on-premises solution for GRC suddenly found themselves in the inconvertible position of having all the right tools they would need to ensure risk and compliance were being fully managed but being unable to use those tools because they were not working from the office anymore.
It is also much easier for businesses to implement cloud solutions because there is no hardware required to implement a cloud solution. When an on-premises solution is being implemented the business must first by the computers, the servers, and the network hardware that will be required to make sure that the solution can work efficiently. Cloud solutions can be used from within any browser on any computer connected to the Internet, this completely eliminates the need of installing dedicated servers or natural infrastructure to use the cloud software. It is expensive to maintain the network infrastructure and hardware for businesses which is why it is important that there are no such costs attached to cloud solutions.
All these factors contribute to the usefulness of GRC solutions for businesses of all sizes. These solutions are easier to implement the newer and also cost lower than they have ever cost before what is the same time delivering much more value than older solutions because the technology behind them has advanced. It is also possible now for businesses to trial GRC solutions by purchasing a subscription to a cloud solution for a limited time or only purchasing a subscription for a specific tool within a full GRC solution. This is a great way to see whether the solution is right for the company and will be able to generate the return on investment the business needs.
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