In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations face increasing challenges in terms of risk management and regulatory compliance. To effectively address these challenges, we have SAP GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) as a comprehensive solution that helps companies identify, assess, and mitigate the risks associated with their operations, while ensuring compliance with applicable regulations and standards. In this article, we will analyze in detail the main functionalities of SAP GRC, concluding with its importance for maintaining the operability and security of any current entity.
What is SAP GRC?
SAP GRC is a software suite developed by SAP, one of the world’s leading business technology companies. It is a centralised platform where it is possible to deploy GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) applications with a modular approach. Each organisation decides what it wants to implement and at what pace.
With SAP GRC it is possible to automate many of the processes related to risk and compliance management, reducing the manual workload and allowing teams to focus on higher value-added activities. At the same time, by having all the information available on a central platform, it is possible to interact between the different applications, achieving greater control and effectiveness than with the sum of their separate parts.
SAP GRC modules
SAP GRC is comprised of several modules, each of which focuses on specific functions that help companies strengthen control and comply with regulatory requirements. The most commonly used modules are listed below, although SAP is constantly evolving and providing new applications:
- SAP GRC Access Control (AC):
- Utility: Access and security management.
- Helps companies ensure that users have appropriate access permissions to critical systems and data.
- It enables centralised management of user roles and profiles, periodic review of assigned access and detection of risks related to inappropriate access.
- SAP GRC Process Control (PC):
- Utility: Process monitoring and control.
- Helps organisations to continuously monitor and evaluate business processes to identify deviations and risks.
- It provides tools to establish internal controls, perform compliance testing and manage the mitigation of risks associated with processes.
- SAP GRC Risk Management (RM):
- Benefit: Risk management.
- Helps companies identify, assess and mitigate operational and strategic risks.
- It offers functionalities for the quantitative and qualitative assessment of risks, the definition and monitoring of mitigation plans and the generation of risk reports in real time.
- SAP GRC Audit Management (AM):
- Utility: Audit Management.
- Helps organisations to plan, execute and manage internal and external audits.
- It provides tools for audit scheduling, findings management, reporting and follow-up of corrective and preventive actions.
- SAP GRC Fraud Management (FM):
- Benefit: Fraud detection and prevention.
- Helps companies identify and prevent fraudulent and malicious activities.
- Provides tools for detecting fraud patterns, analysing anomalous behaviour and managing fraud-related investigations.
Benefits of SAP GRC
Centralised policy management: SAP GRC enables centralised establishment and management of enterprise policies. This includes defining policies, assigning responsibilities, setting rules and conditions, and monitoring compliance. The solution facilitates the creation of customised policies and integration with external policies and standards.
Closely linked to the SAP GRC Process Control module.
Automated internal control: SAP GRC automates the management of internal controls and ensures continuous compliance. It provides tools for the identification, evaluation and monitoring of controls, as well as for the automation of periodic testing and review. This helps organisations maintain tight control over their processes and mitigate associated risks.
Closely linked to the SAP GRC Process Control module.
Continuous auditing and monitoring: The solution provides continuous auditing and monitoring capabilities to assess compliance and detect potential deviations in real time. It enables automated collection and analysis of relevant data, identification of patterns and trends, and generation of detailed reports. This facilitates proactive monitoring of business activities and early detection of potential problems.
Closely linked to the SAP GRC Audit Management module.
Integration with business systems: SAP GRC integrates with other business systems.