Making a Career Switch to GRC

For those who are not familiar with the GRC platform, governance, risk and compliance (GRC) refers to a strategy used to manage an organisation’s overall governance, compliance with regulations, and enterprise risk management. GRC can also be likened to a structured approach to aligning business objectives with IT while effectively meeting compliance requirements and managing risks. A robust and well-planned GRC strategy offers a lot of benefits. There’s optimal IT investments, improved decision-making, elimination of silos, and more optimal IT investments for starters. GRC’s Three Main Components GRC has three primary components, namely: 01: Governance This involves ensuring that organisational activities such as management of IT operations are aligned to meet the business goals of the organisation. 02: Risk This ensures that any risks or opportunities that are associated with organisational activities are  properly identified and addressed in a way that supports the business goals of the organisation. In the context of IT, this means having a strong and comprehensive IT risk management process that rolls into the enterprise risk management function of the organisation. 03: Compliance This involves ensuring organisational activities are carried out in a way that meets the regulations and laws that impact those systems. In IT, this involves ensuring IT systems and all the data that are contained in those systems are used and protected accordingly. Meeting compliance requires IT controls and auditing those controls to guarantee they are working as expected. Organisations and businesses also use controls when managing identified risks. The term GRC was coined in the early 2000s after countless highly publicised corporate financial disasters. Said financial disasters resulted in enterprise scrambling in the effort to improve governance processes and internal control. GRC Certifications for GRC Professionals Just like Practitioner Certificate in Data Protection for Data Protection Officers (DPOs), there are also GRC Professional Training Courses that are being offered nowadays. In Singapore, the course is designed to help GRC professionals acquire the needed skills and develop a better understanding of how to integrate governance, risk management and compliance in one capability. The GRC Professional Training (GRCP) offered by Straits Interactive involves:

• Hands-on workshop and practical case studies
• Real-life example exercises that incorporate worldwide best practices
• Project on the design of GRC capability across the organisation

Course attendees will also be provided with relevant templates, OCEG GRC Capability Model, and important tools such as GRC software to help track their own GRC capability. The course offered will also prepare GRC professionals to successfully pass the GRC Professional (GRCP) certification exam so that they can become certified as a GRCP. Other top GRC certifications include:

• Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC)
• Certified in Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT)
• Project Management Institute – Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP)
• ITIL Expert
• Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA)
• GRC Professional (GRCP)

GRC professionals with GRC certification need to juggle stakeholder expectations with business objectives. This is crucial so organisational goals and objectives are met alongside compliance requirements. This is a massive responsibility and it is considered very important in today’s business climate. Various kinds of job roles will either require or can benefit from a GRC certifications. These job roles include IT security analyst, CIO, information assurance program manager, architect or security engineer, and senior IT auditors, among others. Any organisation can implement GRC—private or public and small or large as long as it wants to align its IT activities to its business goals, stay on top of compliance, and manage risks effectively.