On the 16th of August, Software AG South Africa organized a very special breakfast in the luxurious Hyatt Hotel in Johannesburg. A dozen of risk and compliance officers woke up early to join the breakfast at 7.30 am and lively discussed the converging topics of performance, risk and compliance management. Research results were the basis for a discussion around the ways how to abandon a siloed GRC approach, which is no longer sufficient to keep pace with the speed of external events, changing regulation or to meet a company’s overall business performance objectives. According to the participants, the difficulty is to get this on the agenda of top management and to have them understand the synergy advantages (in terms of better decision making and improved quality) and lower total cost of ownership. Apparently, independent of industry, we all face this challenge.
Three GRC customer cases were discussed: ASR Insurances with a performance focus, Hitachi Construction Machinery Europe with a compliance focus and Mn Services with a risk management focus. After discussing the relations between performance, risk and compliance management, the audience unanimously voted for ERM as the best and all-encompassing practice to achieve synergy across all three disciplines.
As follow-on to the GRC Breakfast, various ARIS Risk & Compliance demonstrations took place in ‘Joburg’ at numerous customer sites. This also included a presentation of the brand new Solvency II Content Package for Insurers, which is received with enthusiasm. The event in Africa has confirmed that Software AG is not only a market leader in BPM, SOA and Integration, but also has a sound vision around GRC. With ever increasing rules and legislation, such as South Africa’s King III, Software AG’s integrated ERM approach may be the way to ‘Get There Faster’.
