The three parts
- Governance: who decides, who is accountable, and the policies that turn management's direction into rules.
- Risk management: finding what could harm the company, rating it, and deciding what to do about it.
- Compliance: knowing which laws, standards and contracts apply, meeting them, and being able to prove it.
Why they belong together
Handled apart, the three create duplicate work: the same control is documented three times for three audits, and risks are reviewed by people who never see the policies.
Handled together, a single set of controls answers several obligations. A risk justifies a control, a policy requires it, and the same evidence serves every audit.
Where to start
- Define the scope: which activities, sites and systems are concerned.
- List your obligations: laws, standards, customer contracts.
- Assess your risks and record them in a risk register.
- Write the policies your obligations and risks require, and have them approved.
- Run a gap assessment to see what is missing, then plan the work with owners and dates.
- Review regularly: risks, controls and documents all age.
Who owns GRC
Management stays accountable. Daily work usually sits with a security, compliance or quality lead, and every risk and control has a named owner in the business. Regulations such as NIS2 and DORA now make management bodies explicitly responsible.
Questions
- What does GRC stand for?
- Governance, risk and compliance: how a company directs itself, manages its risks and meets its obligations.
- Is GRC only for large companies?
- No. Small companies face the same customer questionnaires and many of the same laws. They need fewer documents and simpler processes, not none.
- What is the difference between GRC and an ISMS?
- GRC is the whole discipline. An information security management system (ISMS) applies it to information security, as defined by ISO/IEC 27001.