GRC – Growth, Risk, and Compliance – has fast become the most important movement in business management. Organizations across different industries are implementing GRC solutions to improve overall management, compliance levels, and risk management. One major overlooked factor in the growth of GRC is the advancements in technology. While GRC solutions may seem similar to ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems and CRM (customer relationship management) systems on the surface, their workings are much more exciting.

The Hidden Tech Behind GRC

GRC solutions are developed for business users and a basic requirement is that using them should not require a technical background. Developers hide the technology behind simple to use menus and options which hides the fantastic way technology works in the background to deliver insights and more. Some of the technology is simple – risk mapping and compliance relationships are simple but highly effective. Then there are the groundbreaking technologies which are making their way into compliance management software. These technologies may not be fully implemented or being used to their full potential but that is only because of how raw and new they are right now.

Mapping Risks

An innovative yet simple way technology is used in GRC solutions is risk mapping. GRC solutions have the ability to monitor risk, compliance, and governance and alert users if there is an issue. The GRC solutions do not just detect issues, they also detect the extent of the issue and what needs to be changed. The most common issues are conflicts in compliance, risk, and governance activities. These conflicts are immediately detected thanks to risk mapping.

GRC solutions need to know the relationship between documents, rules, tasks, laws, regulations, policies, and more to be able to detect these conflicts. The system needs to understand how they are linked and how they affect each other. Thanks to risk mapping the systems are able to deliver insights and information that helps management makes the right decisions. If there is a governance issue which is affecting risk and compliance the system will immediately detect it and let users know.

Natural Language Processing

Natural language processing is a very important technology for GRC solutions. All the information that GRC solutions must work with is in human readable language. Computers cannot understand the documents or laws until they are translated into machine language. Developers are thus incorporating natural language processing to allow GRC systems to not just store and manage documents but also understand them.

This is important because of the vast implications it has for improving risk and compliance productivity and efficiency. Once natural language processing is perfected it will allow computers to automatically understand all documents and make decisions accordingly. Computers could then read an email and decide whether it is important enough for you to be alerted right now. They will be able to understand new compliance and risk regulations and will be able to understand now just what parts of your business they affect, but how they affect it, and alert you accordingly. Natural language processing is however still a new technology which will take some years to perfect.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has been inspiring thinkers, developers, and writers for decades, but it is still far away. Natural language processing is a precursor of artificial intelligence and even that technology is still not fully developed. There are many GRC solutions which incorporate elements of artificial intelligence into their compliance management software but there are no truly artificially intelligent solutions available in the market, because the technology is not ready yet.

Artificial intelligence requires the ability to take in new information and understand what it means. This means that an artificial intelligence system shouldn’t need to be told what to do – it will understand and learn. Once this technology is perfected there will be no need for people to worry about risk and compliance. Artificial intelligence will be able to understand risk, compliance, and governance better than any human could and work faster than any human could.

That technology is still years away. We need some more breakthroughs for it to become viable and breakthroughs can never be predicted. It is possible that a scientist comes up with a solution that enables artificial intelligence solutions in the next year, but it is also possible that no breakthroughs are found for a decade. Until the natural language processing is the best technology that we have for GRC solutions.

The role of technology keeps getting larger when it comes to risk and compliance. Our reliance on technology will keep on increasing because of the fantastic productivity and efficiency gains. Until a few years ago organizations used GRC technology to gain a competitive advantage but that’s not how things work anymore. GRC technology is now required to be competitive at all, not just competitive advantages. Thus it is important for businesses to explore the GRC solutions available in the market to find one that fits their needs.