ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management supports GRC strategy for ANZ organisations

As a manager, you have a critical responsibility in establishing a GRC strategy to ensure your organisation moves in the right direction, achieves business objectives without getting caught up in fluctuations and crises. If you're an organisational staff member, you also need to ensure your tasks and products comply properly with regulations and policies issued by the organisation and government.

However, the world is becoming increasingly complex with overlapping policies, and "attacks" on digital systems are becoming more frequent, causing information leaks, system crashes and bringing enormous losses. Within enterprises, the risk of internal staff violating policies (either unintentionally or deliberately) is not uncommon and can sometimes cause more serious damage. Unfortunately, many businesses' current management platforms lack the ability to respond flexibly in real-time and focus on solving these difficulties.

This is when ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management redefines and helps organisations in ANZ re-plan their GRC strategy, whilst delivering quantified benefits according to a Forrester (2021) report with impressive figures: achieving a return on investment (ROI) of up to 235% within 3 years.

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What is GRC?

GRC stands for Governance, Risk and Compliance. GRC strategy is a framework that helps direct and manage business activities to effectively meet business objectives, minimise and prevent risks, and ensure compliance with relevant regulations, laws and policies.

Specifically, these elements can be defined as:

• Governance The frameworks of an organisation's activities and whether or not they are aligned with business objectives. Activities include processes, structures, and policies that are meant to manage and monitor company activities.
• Risk A sustained process of addressing risks, mitigating risks through controls, and providing assurance that the risks are managed according to policies. This includes measurement of risk, assessment, retention, monitoring, and identification.
• Compliance Ensuring that activities within an organisation operate in a way that is aligned with laws and regulations.

Today, GRC can no longer be operated as three independent entities. Only when integrated does GRC strategy become a smart, effective strategic compass and control system.

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Challenges of traditional GRC strategy and GRC systems

According to ServiceNow, many organisations in ANZ are undergoing digital transformation in risk management, but most still face typical barriers:

1. Data and Process Silos

Audit, security, legal and operations departments often use separate systems. This makes consolidating risk information manual, lacking real-time updates and prone to errors.

2. Outdated Control Processes

Control and compliance reports often operate based on Excel and email. This is not only slow, but also prone to data loss, creating a huge burden during audit periods or when incidents occur.

3. Lack of Real-Time Monitoring Capability

Without unified dashboards, managers often only learn about risks after they've already affected operations. This "slow response" makes remediation costs increasingly high.

4. Legal Compliance Complications

CPS 230, CPS 234, ISO 27001, ESG and new reporting requirements from capital markets require organisations to maintain massive compliance records and continuous updates, demanding powerful automation systems.

5. Lack of Specialised GRC Technology Personnel

It's not easy to build internal teams with both traditional risk management knowledge and the capability to deploy platforms like ServiceNow IRM. This is why strategic partners are needed – third parties specialising in consulting and implementing new technology to current systems.

In summary, organisations in Australia and New Zealand need an integrated solution that can address existing pain points that have persisted for years without creating additional cumulative risks. What seems impossible can become reality with ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management (IRM).

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ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management redefines GRC strategy

Quantified Benefits from ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management

The numbers speak for themselves. According to Forrester's Total Economic Impact™ of ServiceNow Risk and Compliance report, organisations implementing ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management can achieve a return on investment (ROI) of up to 235% within 3 years. The report is based on surveys of actual IRM users and shows that:

• $2.7 million saved through centralised and automated risk management
• Increased compliance checking efficiency, saving $3.2 million by eliminating repetitive manual work
• $2.5 million saved in supplier risk assessment processes through automation
• $739,125 saved during audits, reducing manual evidence collection time
• Improved operational resilience, helping reduce recovery time by up to 12 hours per incident

In the context of the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) regional economy increasingly affected by geopolitical instability, stricter ESG requirements, and expectations for transparent corporate governance, organisations cannot continue managing GRC under the old model that tends towards "post-audit" and reactive approaches.

From these metrics, ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management has the capability to redefine the GRC strategy of organisations in ANZ and globally.

1. From Fragmented Control Processes to Unified Platform Architecture

Many organisations in ANZ are operating GRC through independent departments (audit, risk, legal, compliance), each using separate systems and tools. ServiceNow IRM consolidates the entire GRC structure on a single AI-powered Now Platform, thereby:

• Minimising information discrepancies and duplication through Zero-Copy technology
• Creating a "risk intelligence layer" supporting strategic-level decision making
• Providing real-time risk visibility linked to business objectives

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2. From Historical Data to Proactive Monitoring and Predictive Analysis

Previously, many organisations only recognised risks through periodic audits or incident reports. Now with ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management, ANZ businesses can:

• Detect anomalies earlier through continuous monitoring and alert systems
• Analyse gradually increasing risk trends by domain (security, operations, third-party...)
• Prioritise risk handling according to strategic impact, rather than fixed processes

This is particularly important in highly regulated industries like finance, energy, and healthcare, where response time to risks is a matter of survival.

3. From Mandatory Compliance to Strategic Legal Adaptability

When laws and reporting standards in ANZ continuously change, from CPS 230 (operational continuity), NGER (environmental), to IFRS ESG guidelines – organisations need platforms capable of rapid adaptation. ServiceNow IRM provides:

• Automatically updated compliance templates
• Automated policy review cycles and compliance demonstration
• Integration with ESG, supply chain and vendor risk to expand control scope

This helps businesses no longer be passive in following legal changes, but anticipate requirements and strengthen competitive capabilities early.

4. From Compliance Activities to Strategic Value-Creating Departments

Most importantly, ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management helps boards and executives in ANZ see the value of GRC from a strategic perspective:

• Risk is viewed as input for investment, operational, and personnel decisions
• "Traditional" departments like internal audit, security, legal... have tools to transform their role from post-audit to leadership
• GRC is measured by quantitative indicators (risk velocity, time to respond, cost of non-compliance...), creating a common language for leadership levels

Highlight Features of ServiceNow IRM - Simplified but Secure

Below are the standout features that make ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management the tool for solving core challenges of modern GRC:

Real-time Risk Visibility with Interactive Dashboards
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• Provides visual real-time risk dashboards, connecting data from IT, security, vendor and financial sources
• Supports Risk Heat Maps, Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) and Risk Appetite Alignment
• Allows executives to not only see risks, but understand priority levels and strategic impact

Automated Workflow for Policy and Control Lifecycle Management

• Automates the entire policy document and control lifecycle, from design, approval, distribution to evaluation and updates
• Reduces up to 70% of repetitive compliance workload, particularly in environments with hundreds of control requirements like finance, government, healthcare

Explore ServiceNow Supplier Lifecycle Operations Management here!

Continuous Monitoring & AI-Powered Issue Detection

• Integrates with event sources, log systems, ITSM, security tools, helping detect risks as soon as signals appear
• Uses Responsible AI in ITSM and ITOM to suggest root causes, handling priority levels and suggest responsible, effective, rapid solutions
• Helps businesses not only respond quickly, but prevent risks before they spread

Servicenow Vendor Risk Management & Third-Party Risk Scoring

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• Manages supplier profiles, automatically assesses risks based on internal criteria and standards like NIST, ISO, ESG
• Real-time risk scoring system, early warning for suppliers that could disrupt the supply chain
• Integrates with procurement and legal to track contract validity, insurance and violation events

ServiceNow Audit Management & Evidence Collection Automation

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• Automates audit planning, work assignment, finding tracking and evidence consolidation from multiple system sources
• Reduces audit preparation time by up to 50%, particularly in internal audits, legal compliance audits and ISO
• Easy retrieval of control evidence records at the right time (audit readiness)

Seamless Integration with ITSM, CMDB, ESG & more thank to AI Agent Fabric

• Synchronises with ServiceNow CMDB, ensuring risks can be linked to specific services, assets and processes
• Supports integration with external systems like SAP, Oracle, Workday, IAM, SIEM... through ServiceNow AI Agent Fabric
• Serves as an ideal platform to expand into Enterprise Risk, ESG Reporting, Operational Resilience, Business Continuity Planning

Regulatory Content & Framework Mapping

• Provides out-of-the-box regulatory sets including: ISO 27001, NIST 800-53, HIPAA, GDPR, APRA CPS 234, ESG Disclosure Standards...
• Allows businesses to quickly map controls with new legal requirements without rebuilding from scratch.

Value Mapping & Maturity Benchmarking

• Supports businesses in building GRC maturity roadmaps, quantifying performance indicators and transformation progress
• Links risk management activities to strategic reporting, helping executives clearly see investment value.

Let Novabridge make things simple for you

By now you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the technical terminology, right? GRC transformation is not just an IT project, it's a strategic journey, and that journey can sometimes be very easy to... get lost on.

That's precisely why you need Novabridge – a leading ServiceNow Elite Partner in Australia and New Zealand, with deep expertise in consulting and implementing GRC on the ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management platform.

We help you simplify everything complex:

• Translate "technology language" into "business language" – so everyone in the organisation understands and coordinates
• Build roadmaps suitable for current GRC maturity levels – whether you're managing with Excel or already have a clear 3 Lines of Defence model
• Integrate IRM with existing operational ecosystems – from financial systems, HR, security, to internal audit
• Partner from consulting, implementation to value measurement – so you don't just get software, but a truly operational GRC strategy

We've helped government, banks, infrastructure groups and non-profit organisations transform their approach to risk – from reactive to predictive, from burden to advantage, smoothly and seamlessly.

With Novabridge, you won't just implement a system, you'll build a sustainable and intelligent governance platform for the future.

Conclusion

When businesses face constantly changing environments from supply chain disruptions, cybersecurity crises, to ESG expectations, modern GRC strategy must anticipate and lead.

ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management is the pillar of the new GRC model: real-time data, automated processes, intelligent analysis and scalability by phases. Meanwhile, Novabridge is the architect helping realise that roadmap, from strategy formulation to successful implementation in each specific industry.

Ready to transform your GRC strategy? Contact Novabridge today to discover how ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management can deliver quantified benefits and strategic value to your ANZ organisation.

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