GRC platforms face pushback
- Some senior leaders resist enterprise GRC platforms, arguing they don't deliver visible value quickly. (x.com) - Onspring published advice aimed at countering common objections and improving risk visibility and efficiency. (x.com) - The exchange shows tension between centralising risk data and leaders preferring manual or siloed processes. (x.com)
A governance, risk and compliance platform is software that puts audit, policy and risk records in one system, and some executives are still pushing back on buying one. (onspring.com) Onspring, a Kansas-based GRC vendor, published a March 2, 2026 post aimed at winning executive approval for new platforms; the company updated it on March 26. Heather Cox’s post listed four recurring objections: upfront cost, long implementation timelines, low employee adoption and disruption to existing workflows. (onspring.com) The company’s answer was to shift the pitch from software features to business outcomes. Onspring said modern platforms can be rolled out incrementally and used to speed decision-making, automate compliance work and improve risk visibility. (onspring.com) That argument lands in a market built around centralization. Onspring says its GRC suite unifies risk, compliance, policy, audit and third-party risk processes in a centralized system with broader visibility and automation. (onspring.com) The friction is over whether leaders see enough value soon enough to justify changing how teams work. Onspring’s own sales case says executives often accept that compliance is getting more complex but still hesitate when the return on investment is not immediate or obvious. (onspring.com) Manual and siloed processes are the alternative many organizations keep falling back on. Corporate Compliance Insights wrote in 2025 that fragmented departments create blind spots in risk management and make it harder to turn governance, risk and compliance into a single operating model. (corporatecomplianceinsights.com) Other vendors are making the same case with similar language. Diligent said in a January 2026 guide that GRC automation means centralizing and standardizing governance, risk and compliance tasks, while 6clicks said disconnected tools slow decisions, duplicate work and weaken enterprise-wide visibility. (diligent.com) (6clicks.com) Onspring has also been adding artificial intelligence to strengthen that pitch. The company announced Onspring AI on October 14, 2025, saying the embedded tools are meant to cut manual work and help compliance teams handle growing demands with fewer resources. (onspring.com) The pushback has not disappeared; it has just become more specific. Vendors are now selling centralized risk data, faster reporting and automation, while skeptical senior leaders are still asking how fast those gains will show up in day-to-day operations. (onspring.com)
