Introducing new software to a business of any kind can be a heavy process for Chief Technology Officers, Chief Information Officers and their tech teams.

Associated with hours of work, worries about security, resource-heavy API integrations and costly data off-boarding, it’s no wonder tech leaders are sceptical about moving away from managing risk on spreadsheets or changing out systems their company has outgrown.

This is where RiskSmart is different! In this blog, I’ll cover how we’ve seen RiskSmart make a real difference for tech leaders and their teams across the board.  

Robust Security and SSO Integration 

Among the most pressing concerns for tech leaders are data security and Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities. And understandably so, as according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, they discovered that breaches initiated with stolen or compromised credentials, on average, took the longest to resolve.  

Unlike many SaaS products that impose additional charges for SSO, RiskSmart offers this as a complimentary feature.

Additionally, we do not charge for additional users, allowing unrestricted access to our Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platform in a secure and monitored manner. 

Enhanced User Provisioning with SCIM 

Our approach extends to comprehensive user provisioning through the System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM). This empowers tech teams by simplifying the management of user access, ensuring seamless transitions for new hires and departing employees, and maintaining data accuracy across the platform.  

This service is provided at no extra cost, emphasising our commitment to security and user control. 

Free exports and off-boarding of data 

Many companies have yet to understand exactly how valuable and vulnerable their data is, and storage and protection of this precious resource often lands on the shoulders of tech teams.  

Whilst many solutions on the market charge huge premiums to offboard their data, we here at RiskSmart believe you should always be in charge of accessing your company data for free.  

As a part of us lowering the barrier to adopt an RMS system, RiskSmart will never charge you to off-board your data, should you ever need to.  

Secure communications  

We see tech leaders and their teams showing great interest in secure communications. This is one of the main drivers behind creating integrations to both Slack and Teams on RiskSmart, making it easy to use safe communication systems that people are familiar with.  

This contributes to pushing risk management to the first line, using the tools employees are familiar with. 

Easy, user-led integrations

In addition to classic API integrations, SaaS companies across the board are moving to democratise integrations by making them user-led and secure.

Bolstering our platform with easy-to-set-up integrations that require light to no resources from your dev team has been key for us. The result of this is automated and simplified integrations with a wide range of tech and fewer devs between our SaaS product and other services. 

End duplication frustration 

As tech leaders, we often experience two problems taking more of our teams’ effort and causing way more frustration than they should. The first one is the duplication of work.

Managing risk through spreadsheets, or an inadequate Risk Management system, causes silos throughout the business and will have teams re-inventing the wheel for the same processes or putting in place similar controls to measure, mitigate or prevent risk.  

This leads us to our second common frustration, which is around duplicating, collecting and maintaining data other teams might already have. Not only does this illustrate perfectly duplication of effort, but it also leads to differences and inaccurate documentation.  

Not having a single plane of glass or that "one source of truth."

Whatever cheesy corporate language metaphor you use, RiskSmart can help you mitigate both of these frustrations. It’s a powerful tool for the technical department to gain insight into how the wider company policies impact technical work and a way to store data to ensure it’s always up-to-date and accurate.  

As a reference for you, 61% of corporate risk and compliance professionals told Thomson Reuters that their main priority over the next year or so was keeping on top of regulatory and legislative changes.

If your data isn’t consistent, this could be a huge blocker for the wider business strategy.  

 

Why should CTOs and CIOs care about getting involved in Risk Management? 

Most tech leaders will already know this, but for the sake of this point (and as a pat on the back to IT departments everywhere), your team is already doing Risk Management work.

Important Risk Management work at that! 

According to the Institute of Internal Auditors, Cybersecurity (65%) and IT (51%) are at the very top of the list of high-risk areas. This is above third-party relations, compliance and operational risks.  

Every drop of blood, sweat and tears your team pours into installing anti-virus software, security training, or chasing up Gary from the Sales team, who hasn’t installed vital software updates in longer than you care to admit, is practical work that might not get registered.  

Connecting the practical and theoretical side of Risk 

Tech leaders and their teams getting more involved in Risk Management connect the practical work of Risk Management to the theoretical part. It also makes the efforts of your team more visible and included in the wider spectrum of how the business deals with risk.  

Connecting your hard work to the wider risk landscape is challenging but worth tackling head-on.   

 

How can CTOs get involved in Risk Management?  

• Find the right system for you: Start with implementing a Risk Management system that scales with your business and allows for a wide range of users to access and implement the system as a part of their routine.  
  
  
• Get to know your current process: Determine how to add value or insight to what’s already in place. Whether this is a workshop with the Risk team or something less official, it can help you determine exactly where your team should be involved. 
   
• Get the efforts and achievements of your team recognised: Visualising and regularly reporting how your efforts are positively contributing to a more Risk-aware culture is key. Choosing a Risk Management Software that can easily help you make clear, quick and custom reports is key.  
  
  
• Start identifying where work has been duplicated: Reducing duplicate efforts helps you free up more capacity in your team. Implementing an RMS system that has a centralised and clear way of storing data can help you identify these areas and build on the data already present in your business.  

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