GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance)

GRC stands for Governance, Risk, and Compliance and refers collectively to the policies, processes, and tools an organization uses to manage corporate oversight, identify and treat risks, and meet regulatory and contractual obligations. Governance covers board-level oversight, organizational structure, and decision rights. Risk covers identification, assessment, treatment, and monitoring of business and technical risks. Compliance covers conformance with external requirements like SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and customer contracts. The three disciplines overlap significantly: most controls serve multiple purposes, and a unified GRC program reduces duplicated effort. The GRC tool category includes platforms that automate evidence collection, manage policies, track vendor risks, and produce auditor-ready reports. Traditional GRC platforms targeting large enterprises tend to be expensive and complex. SimpleAudit applies an AI-first approach to GRC, replacing manual evidence chasing and policy authoring with conversational interactions tuned for startups and small teams. Understanding GRC helps frame how SOC 2 fits within the broader compliance landscape.