Salil Dighe the founder and CEO Meta Byte Technologies explains how partners in the region can build a successful GRC practice.
What is the market outlook for GRC in the Middle East and what are the challenges that solution providers should consider while developing their GRC practice in the region?
The region is just about turning interesting for the Enterprise GRC market space and is growing organically. Unfortunately most of the people think IT-GRC is always a good start point for the GRC Program which is not the case.
Solution providers can be broadly classified into 2 segments; IT-GRC and Enterprise GRC. And, most of the times you will find a tug of war between the two as the region is dominated by the technology vendors, which is one of the main reasons that majority of the enterprises in the region are using only IT-GRC tools.
GRC being a completely different ball game together and to build a GRC practice one (whether Enterprise or Solution provider) needs to consider that they need roadmaps which can generate a GRC Journey. Lot many other areas need to be looked carefully in terms of what priorities lie ahead whether operational or strategic and consult with industry experts who would serve them as guides to achieve the final aim. One also needs to consider and evaluate how mature their organisation is from a process aspect.
How shall a solution provider approach building a GRC practice and how should solution providers prepare their employees to offer GRC services?
Solution provider needs to take a consultative approach for building a GRC practice and GRC cannot be offered as a productised service, it needs to be embedded into their DNA. Solution provider need to invest heavily into resources, skill-sets, education, knowledge base as success in GRC practice is directly related to the intelligence and understanding of the subject to create roadmaps and frameworks that will ultimately result in an successful GRC implementation.
How can solution providers stand out in the GRC space and distinguish their offerings in the market?
Standing out is by passion in this space. Distinguishing is by virtue.
While channel stakeholders agree that GRC is part of the broader corporate governance process and management, what aspects must solution providers considered when guiding their end user customers that want to develop a GRC strategy?
If you are a solution provider and if you do not understand what your client’s corporate governance is then may be this space is not the right fit for you. If you need to change then the change needs to start internally first.
Do value-added distributors (VADs) have a role to play in helping their solution provider partners to build GRC practices that are sustainable?
Don’t think VAD’s can add any value as this is not a product sale.
Given that most corporate governance issues are not strictly enforced in most companies in the region, is it hard to make a GRC case here?
In fact, we are seeing a lot of companies transforming in that direction. In any case governance is not about control alone it’s also about a journey which the entire organisation needs to be part of. We definitely see that changing in this region.
