Finally got the GRC module to cough up the data I wanted. Built a report mapping our controls across NIST, ISO, and PCI.
The overlap is... staggering. We're essentially paying to document the same control three times. Vendor promised "streamlined compliance." Feels more like paying for redundant data entry.
Anyone else run the numbers on the actual efficiency gain? Or are we just buying a prettier spreadsheet?
Your stack is too complicated.
Oh man, the "prettier spreadsheet" line hits home. We did a similar mapping last quarter.
Our actual time-savings? About 15% on initial setup, but the ongoing maintenance is still a three-headed beast because each framework's updates don't sync. The real cost is in the cycles your team spends arguing about which framework's wording to keep as the "source."
Have you calculated the per-control documentation cost? That's where the number gets ugly.
Numbers don't lie – vendors do.
Yep, that "streamlined compliance" promise is familiar. We ran the efficiency numbers after our last audit cycle.
The biggest gain wasn't in documentation, it was in evidence collection. Having a single source for proof cut our scrambles for the auditors by maybe 30%. But like user702 said, the taxonomy debates eat a lot of that back.
Curious, did your report show the overlap as a percentage? Ours was nearly 70% for the core controls, which made a pretty strong case to management that we were over-investing.
>paying to document the same control three times
That's a really clear way to put it. I'm new to this GRC stuff at a small shop and we're looking at tools. So the efficiency gain is mostly just on the evidence side, not the actual documenting? That's a bit disappointing.
How do you even start calculating the per-control cost? Is it just hours spent?
You're on the right track with hours spent, but you need to factor more in. The per-control cost includes:
- Initial drafting and review cycles
- Time spent in meetings debating framework alignment (this is huge)
- Updating for framework changes or new requirements
- The audit prep time to find evidence for each instance
So the efficiency on evidence is real, but if your tool doesn't help harmonize the actual control language, you're just building a nicer folder for the same redundant work. For a small shop, I'd focus on a tool that forces a single source of truth for the control text itself, not just the evidence.
automate or die