IRM.Expert
Delivering Value out of GRC/IRM Solutions

Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) are crucial areas of focus for companies to help manage compliance with regulations and policies, reduce their risk exposure, enhance information security practices, and streamline audits and remediation activities. Many companies rely on ServiceNow—one of the leading GRC solution providers—platform for integrated risk management (IRM) and continuous compliance, which enables multiple department functions to interact while still maintain autonomy over their workflows seamlessly. However, most organizations that implement ServiceNow lack the expertise, skill level, and resources required to utilize the IRM/GRC module to its true potential. This is precisely where London-based IRM.Expert brings to bear their expertise. Based in London, IRM.Expert provides unparalleled knowledge on GRC and IRM across various sectors. “Our Architects Advisory team provides support during and after ServiceNow IRM/GRC implementation projects and help in designing the next phases to deliver more value to an organization,” explains Eric Le Martret, Chairman and CEO of IRM.Expert.

The inception story of IRM.Expert dates back to the time when Eric served as ServiceNow’s IRM/GRC Risk Practice lead in EMEA, where he contributed to most of the IRM/GRC implementations in the UK, France, Benelux, and Nordic countries for five years. During this time, he saw not only the strength of the ServiceNow platform but how frustrating it can become if the IRM/GRC Module was implemented poorly; after that, Eric decided to leave and establish his own practice.

Typical clients of IRM.Expert’s are companies that have failed to deliver true value from ServiceNow IRM/GRC solution. One of IRM.Expert’s offerings is designed to audit an existing implementation and, after identifying flaws, make recommendations to revamp or rebuild the solution in a manner that meets the client’s expectations and goals. Often ServiceNow implementation partners do not possess the expertise required to navigate the complex architecture of IRM/GRC modules. They listen to the client’s demands and proceed with the implementation without considering whether it aligns with the solution’s architecture. Leveraging its mastery over the ServiceNow IRM/GRC architecture, IRM.Expert makes recommendations with best practices so that clients can benefit from the full value of their GRC solutions.

We provide support during and after ServiceNow IRM/GRC implementation projects and help in delivering more value to an organization

Among the company’s various service offerings, the design of the Risk Universe or entity classes and types is critical as the risk and control frameworks define how a company generates risks and control instances toward their entities (IT assets, organization structures, processes, vendors, projects, etc.). Apart from risk and control framework design, IRM.Expert also provides the best migration strategy offering for existing legacy GRC solutions such as Archer, MetricStream or OpenPages. It is important to note that IRM.Expert as well supports other ServiceNow implementation partner. In fact, ServiceNow also collaborates with IRM.Expert for consultation and advisory with some of their clients.

Despite being a relatively new company, IRM.Expert’s roster of clients includes large corporations like BNP Paribas, Euroclear, and SKY (Comcast). Citing an instance of a specific client, a financial institution in Belgium, Eric mentions how they had begun implementing a risk event strategy—one of the operational risk management capabilities in most financial institutions—using the ServiceNow platform. IRM.Expert was brought in to help with the implementation of risk and compliance self-assessment (RCSA), which required an advanced ServiceNow risk module. The client is finalizing the user acceptance testing (UAT) and the solution will be going live in early 2021.

Moving forward, Eric reveals that a second company called Belasis has been created to deliver applications centered on IRM, GRC, and SecOps. In collaboration with ServiceNow Store, the first two applications have been launched in October and plans for several others are in place. IRM.Expert also continues to partner with ServiceNow, providing consultation services for new product releases. Implementing ServiceNow IRM/GRC solutions is not a one-step process, which is why IRM.Expert is here to guide clients along the journey and help them generate value from their solutions.