Key Takeaways
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Choosing the right GRC tool is critical for achieving certifications like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and NIST.
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GRC platforms automate compliance tasks, streamline audits, and enable real-time monitoring to keep your business audit-ready.
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The best GRC tool for your business depends on your company size, tech stack, and certification goals.
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Poorly matched GRC tools can lead to delays, missed deadlines, and low team adoption.
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Partnering with compliance experts can accelerate implementation, reduce costs, and improve alignment with audit requirements.
Cybersecurity compliance has become more than a best practice. As cyberattacks get more sophisticated and governments enact more robust data protection laws, you need a way to show clients you’ll take their security seriously.
This is why many businesses pursue compliance certifications like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and NIST frameworks. Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) tools can help you qualify for these. They automate key compliance tasks, consolidate reporting, and protect your business with continuous monitoring, among other services.
However, not every GRC tool offers the same benefits. Some will be a better fit for your company’s goals than others. This guide will answer “What is GRC in cybersecurity?” and help you find the right software solution for your business.
What Is a GRC Tool?
GRC software helps organizations stay compliant with external regulations and internal cybersecurity policies. It acts as a centralized platform where leaders can automate compliance tasks, conduct risk management, and prepare for audits.
Some of the key functions of GRC tools include:
- Risk identification: A GRC tool can help your team find cybersecurity and business risks. It identifies these challenges, helps you prioritize them, and enables more proactive risk mitigation.
- Workflow automation: GRC software can automate processes like evidence collection and audit readiness checks. This saves your team time, keeping your company on track with compliance without spending as many labor hours.
- Policy and control management: GRC platforms often act as central points of truth for cybersecurity documents, policies, and controls. This keeps everything in one place for easier oversight across departments.
- Compliance tracking and reporting: With real-time dashboards and automated reports, your GRC tool can also help you track compliance with key frameworks. It can issue alerts and share updates with stakeholders whenever risks arise.
- Integration with your existing tech stack: Finally, many GRC platforms integrate with a wide variety of business systems. This makes it possible to meet your compliance goals without changing how you work in the process.
The Benefits of a GRC Tool in the Compliance Journey
So, now you know what GRC software does. But how do those capabilities benefit your business? We explore below.
Automate Evidence Collection and Documentation
When you pursue a certification like ISO 27001, you have to provide a serious amount of documentation. This includes activity logs, screenshots, and reports from most parts of your company’s cybersecurity stack.
GRC governance, risk, and compliance tools can automate all of that. They’ll automatically collect everything you need to reach your certification goals and store it in a centralized location. This saves your team from having to complete the same repetitive tasks again and again. It also removes the risk of human error impacting your document collection.
Stay Audit-Ready
GRC tools can also help you stay ready for audits throughout the year. They continuously monitor your operations, looking for security risks, and helping you fix them in real-time. This means you’ll know the minute you risk falling out of compliance via an automated alert system.
Even if your cybersecurity controls are pristine today, you need monitoring to ensure they stay that way. GRC tools provide it, making sure your documentation and compliance processes are always ready for an auditor’s review.
Facilitate Cross-Department Collaboration
From IT to legal and sales to HR, everyone in your company has a role to play in maintaining compliance. GRC platforms make it easier to coordinate across these groups. You can use it to assign compliance tasks, track completion, and expand visibility across teams. This keeps everyone on the same page, eliminates redundant tasks, and helps your group stay compliant.
Simplify Control Mapping Across Frameworks
Finally, your company may decide to pursue multiple cybersecurity certifications, like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. This can be useful for establishing your security bona fides across different industries or regions. For example, SOC 2 is a popular framework in North America, but ISO 27001 resonates more internationally.
GRC tools can help you stay on top of the differing requirements of frameworks like these. You can reuse evidence on the platform, map distinct controls for each certification, and save time.
Why Finding the Right GRC Tool Matters
GRC platforms often promise similar benefits. But their value to your business can vary widely. For example, some tools are designed to deliver rapid certification readiness to startups, while others help large enterprises manage complex, layered compliance obligations.
You want a tool that matches your business size and certification goals. You can find one by looking for options that feature:
- Built-in support for the framework you’re targeting, like HIPAA or ISO
- Strong integration with your existing tech stack
- Real-time compliance monitoring that meets your needs
- Customizable workflows and dashboards (so you can design your perfect overview)
- Responsive support when you need it
You’ll also want to balance performance with cost. For example, it may not be worth paying for a platform with advanced, enterprise-grade capabilities if you won’t use them anytime soon.
Trava partners with providers like Secureframe, Drata, and Vanta. These solutions are optimized for fast-moving companies and cloud-native environments. They also help with automated evidence collection and multi-framework compliance strategies.
Whatever platform you choose, it’s worth taking your time to compare options and find the right fit for your business. Choosing the wrong GRC tool can lead to:
- Implementation delays: Wasting internal resources on a longer installation process for a tool that’s overly complex or not aligned with your goals.
- Missed audit deadlines: You could have limited functionality and support with the wrong tool, slowing your progress and potentially leading to missed deadlines.
- Low team adoption: If the platform isn’t a good fit for your team, they may not use it. This could lead to you paying for a GRC tool that you don’t get much value from in practice.
- Poor integrations: The platform may not integrate well with your existing tech stack, which could decrease its effectiveness.
- Limited controls mapping: The wrong solution will make it harder to track controls across different frameworks. This could make pursuing multiple certifications a very challenging process.
Partnering With Experts To Get Certified Faster
Finding the ideal GRC tool is hard enough. But you’ll also need to implement and manage it. That process can be very challenging when you lack significant internal cybersecurity expertise. Even if you have it, you may want to partner with an expert who can do the job for you. This can save you time and money, as explored below.
Faster Time To Value
First, compliance experts specialize in GRC tools and processes. They’ll help your business configure integrations, import control sets, and map existing policies to a framework. Tasks like these can take hours if you’re unfamiliar with GRC tools. But an expert can help you find the ideal solution in minutes.
This will help your business get value from the platform it chooses sooner. That means you can potentially earn the cybersecurity certification you’re pursuing at an earlier date. This could help you win new clients with improved compliance much sooner than your initial projections anticipated.
Closer Framework Alignment
An expert can also design your GRC platform to meet the exact nuances of the framework you’re pursuing. They understand what auditors look for and will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure you pass those checks.
This won’t just help you get certified faster, it can also save you money. Your expert will only implement processes that align with your goals, saving you from overinvesting in controls you don’t need.
Built-In Support From Experts
It’s also extremely useful to have a GRC expert you can call with questions any time you have them. They can help you respond to alerts, put policy updates into practice, and respond to problems as needed. Put simply, your company will always have access to the cybersecurity expertise it needs to stay compliant.
How Trava Makes GRC Tools Work for You
If you’re interested in partnering with an expert, consider compliance as a service from Trava. We have a 100% certification rate and can help your team with everything from GRC tool selection to ongoing management.
Our experts will work directly with your team to:
- Choose the best GRC tool for your business and budget
- Set up the tool to match your workflows
- Automate data collection and evidence tracking
- Monitor your progress toward certification in real time
- Provide ongoing support to help you fix problems sooner
Choosing a GRC Tool That Gets You Certified
Investing in a GRC tool can help your company earn cybersecurity certifications that lead to new business. But you’ll need to find the right tool to meet your goals. That means looking beyond technological capabilities to find platforms that align with your company size, industry, and cybersecurity challenges.
You don’t have to go through this process alone. Many companies choose to partner with experts who offer compliance as a service. This can help you find and implement the ideal GRC tool faster and save money in the process.
Want to learn more about how Trava can help? Talk to a compliance expert today. We’ll walk you through your options, listen to your goals, and suggest a custom solution to help you reach them.