By Leon Erlanger

The evolution of corporate governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) may enable organizations to adopt a more streamlined, or Lean, approach. Organizations that apply Lean strategies to GRC processes find they can make those processes faster, more effective and more cost-efficient. In this way, organizations can reduce redundancy and poor alignment from their organization's compliance and governance processes. This lets them manage risk more effectively and reduce the number of resources needed to develop and maintain the GRC solution.

This approach is called LeanGRC™ by the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), a nonprofit organization that helps companies enhance their GRC efforts. LeanGRC isn't only about greater efficiency, the organization says. Integration also plays a vital role in helping corporate departments share preferred practices. "One department might be strong in policy development and distribution," says Scott Mitchell, Chairman and CEO of OCEG, "while another is strong in detection and controls."

LeanGRC efforts are still in their early stages, as many companies have instead tackled individual regulations and compliance activities as they come along. While this is a valid approach to complying quickly with international, governmental and industry regulations, it can result in a great deal of overlap and repetitive processes. That's because each team typically applies a unique set of methodologies, controls, tests and technologies to various regulations.

"In many companies, you have silos of compliance activities with very little communication or sharing of information," says Robert Hansen, a Principal in the Audit and Enterprise Risk Services Practice at Deloitte & Touche LLP (Deloitte & Touche). "So if a company has five major compliance programs, chances are it also has five unique evaluation and reporting processes. In many cases, these programs are asking the same individuals in the organization to provide the same information and perform the same tests multiple times."