The Quick Guide to GRC for MSSPs

What is GRC and why should MSSPs and MSPs pay attention to its growing importance? We nail down the basics in this post to help you realize its potential for your managed services.

What is GRC?

Coined by the Open Compliance and Ethics Group in 2002, GRC refers to an operational strategy for handling three important components of business: governance, risk management, and compliance.

Governance encompasses the practices and processes that an organization implements to ensure effective management and the ability to meet business objectives and goals.
Risk Management involves identifying, categorizing, and assessing risks but also the development of strategies to mitigate and control those risks and their potential impact on operations.
Compliance refers to an organization’s adherence to laws, regulations, and best practices mandated by governing bodies and other relevant entities.

While many organizations tend to think of governance, risk, and compliance as separate, GRC provides a coordinated model that views these components as interdependent. It aligns IT activities with business goals to manage risks and stay compliant with industry and government regulations.

Why MSPs and MSSPs Should Understand GRC

Not sure why you need to understand GRC? We’ll give you three reasons why governance, risk, and compliance matter to your business.

Increasing Demand for Governance as a Service
Cyberthreats are becoming more sophisticated, and the laws and regulations enacted to allay those threats are complex and constantly evolving. In this challenging security landscape, GRC frameworks are more important than ever, and they’re required for organizations of all sizes. But most organizations lack the internal and financial resources to run an effective GRC program. Outsourcing to an MSP/MSSP can help them not only augment staff, but also leverage their partners’ expertise in enhancing governance, reducing risk, and ensuring compliance.
MSSP Governance as a Service for Better Customer Experiences
Facilitating GRC for clients governed by HIPAA, CMMC, FTC Safeguard, and other regulatory frameworks creates a better customer experience. By helping them implement required cybersecurity policies and controls, assess risk, and prepare for audits, you can protect your clients from financial penalties and litigation. That, in turn, makes you a reliable and valuable partner, which ultimately serves your bottom line.
MSSP Compliance Protects Your Business
GRC protects your MSSP/MSP as much as it protects your clients. For example, if you’re working with FTC Safeguard or CMMC clients, you may need to comply with these frameworks, and GRC is how you get your house in order. Implementing these frameworks offers a triple win: enhanced data protection for you and your clients, minimized downtime during unexpected disruptions, and significantly reduced legal and financial risks associated with noncompliance.

GRC Components that MSSPs and MSPs Should Know

To reap the benefits of selling governance as a service to current and prospective clients, you need to understand all three components of GRC. Here’s what you should know.

Corporate Governance Policies

Governance refers to the rules, processes, and policies that enable a business to achieve its mission and goals. In short, it establishes the framework through which leadership can make decisions. For MSSPs/MSPs offering governance as a service, this is where GRC begins.

Risk Management Programs

Risk management programs are the processes an organization puts in place to both mitigate and monitor risks. As an MSSP/MSP, you may already perform risk assessments and internal audits, vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, intrusion detection, and planning incident response strategies. With the tools and expertise to perform the continuous risk management required by GRC, it’s just a matter of reframing these capabilities under the umbrella of governance as a service offer.

Regulatory Compliance

An increasing number of organizations must meet some industry standard or regulatory requirement to run both safely and legally. The good news is that many of these standards and regulations are organized around cybersecurity controls, validation, and monitoring as well as data and information privacy. So, like risk management, many of the key activities associated with regulatory compliance are already part of what you offer your clients. What you need to add to your repertoire is a thorough understanding of the particular frameworks required by each of your clients.

Helpful Governance, Risk and Compliance Tools for MSSPs/MSPs

Here’s a fact to consider: You can’t offer governance, risk management, and compliance as a service to your clients if you’re using spreadsheets to track framework compliance. Operationalizing GRC requires the sophistication of governance-as-a-service software like Compliance Scorecard. Let’s take a look at some of the MSSP/MSP GRC tools you’ll find in this first-of-its-kind platform.

Choose a Governance Framework

Compliance Scorecard contains fully supported frameworks to help you establish a governance structure for any organization. Whether you’re working with clients that fall under a specific regulatory framework, or you’re just looking to set a foundation to drive a GRC program, we have everything you need to conduct assessments of current controls, identify gaps, and realign governance policies and procedures.

Conduct Risk Assessments

Use Compliance Scorecard to provide comprehensive insight into your clients' risks and the technical controls in place for mitigation. Our platform streamlines the risk assessment component of GRC by identifying where your policies and controls are falling short and empowers you to implement the appropriate resources where needed.

Continuous Compliance

GRC is an ongoing operational strategy that requires continuous monitoring and assessment. Compliance Scorecard simplifies the evaluation and monitoring process so that your program is always up-to-date and compliant with changes in regulations or standards.

Contact Us for More MSSP Governance as Service Possibilities

The need for GRC will only continue to rise as the cybersecurity and regulatory landscapes continue to evolve. MSSPs and MSPs can play a significant role in enhancing governance, reducing risks, and ensuring compliance for clients, provided they leverage the right tools.

Elevate your cybersecurity offerings by downloading our governance playbook or our risk assessment template, book a demo, or contact us for more MSP and MSSP Governance as a Service possibilities.