Understanding the Role of GRC Platforms in Security and Compliance
In recent years, Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platforms have become a central part of how organisations manage their security and compliance obligations. More than ever, businesses across industries are using GRC tools to bring structure, consistency, and visibility to their compliance programmes.
These platforms offer significant advantages. They make it easier to track progress against compliance objectives, align policies and controls to recognised frameworks, and maintain readiness for audits. However, it’s important to understand what these tools do and what they don’t.
What GRC Platforms Do Well
Security-focused compliance tools share many common features that make compliance management more efficient such as:
Automated evidence collection from cloud platforms, identity systems, and productivity tools
Continuous compliance monitoring to provide real-time visibility of control effectiveness
Support for multiple frameworks, including ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS
Policy management and automation to generate and security policies
Risk and vendor management features for ongoing assessments and third-party reviews
Task and workflow management for assigning and tracking compliance-related actions
These capabilities streamline administrative work, reduce manual errors, and make compliance activities more transparent across an organisation.
What GRC Platforms Don’t Do
Despite these strengths, GRC platforms are often misunderstood as complete security solutions. In reality, they do not perform the operational tasks required to meet the intent of compliance frameworks.
For example, ISO 27001 includes controls requiring the identification, triage, and response to security incidents. A GRC platform can highlight that an incident management process must exist, document policies, and track related tasks — but it cannot detect, assess, or resolve incidents on its own.
Similarly, while the tool might record access review requirements, a team still needs to perform those reviews. The platform helps manage the process, not execute it.
The Real Role of a GRC Platform
A GRC tool should be viewed as an enabler of compliance, not the complete solution. It provides the structure, workflows, and visibility needed to coordinate compliance activities, but the operational implementation — the people, processes, and technical controls, must still be managed by the organisation.
Businesses that understand this distinction are better positioned to use their GRC tools as intended: to simplify compliance management while maintaining strong operational practices that truly uphold security standards.
