How Automation Addresses Critical Gaps in SAP GRC
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Key Takeaways
⇨ SAP GRC Access Control (GRC-SAC) lacks vital features for effective compliance management, such as automated monitoring and notifications, which can lead to inefficiencies and increased compliance risks in complex environments.
⇨ The implementation of intelligent AI agents by ToggleNow enhances the review process of Firefighter Controller Logs and automates the de-provisioning of dormant roles, significantly improving compliance, optimizing resources, and reducing unnecessary licensing costs.
⇨ Organizations can benefit from the scalability and efficiency of automated solutions, allowing their Operations and Support teams to focus on high-value activities, ultimately transforming their compliance strategies amid rising demands for automation in business processes.
SAP GRC Access Control (GRC-SAC) is a powerful tool enabling GRC professionals to maintain compliance, mitigate risks, and optimize governance. However, it lacks certain features critical to efficient operations, such as monitoring GRC mitigating controls or triggering automated notifications. This gap becomes especially evident in managing complex, high-stakes compliance environments. Consider these two scenarios:
Automated Firefighter Controller Log Reviews: Firefighter ID Controllers often receive numerous logs whenever users utilize Firefighter IDs. These logs are frequently approved without detailed scrutiny, reducing the process to a mere formality. Implementing a proactive review mechanism through an automated agent can significantly enhance the process.
An automated agent thoroughly reviews the logs before they are assigned to Controllers, ensuring detailed analysis. Logs without critical activities can be automatically closed by the AI agent with an appropriate update, streamlining the workload for Controllers and improving the overall efficiency and accuracy of the review process.
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Automated De-provisioning of Dormant Roles: With the new licensing model, users are automatically calculated in the highest licensing category based on the assigned authorizations. However, if users are not utilizing specific transaction codes or Fiori apps within certain roles, this can lead to unnecessary licensing costs.
Automated agents can periodically analyze role usage and identify roles that are not being utilized and raise a GRC request to review and potentially remove them. This automation not only helps enterprises reduce licensing costs but also ensures users retain only the access necessary, enhancing security and compliance.
Many organizations assign these tasks to their Operations and Support teams, who must run reports, extract data, and manually notify stakeholders. While necessary, this approach diverts valuable resources, introduces human error, and creates delays that undermine compliance efforts.
A conglomerate client came to solve their challenges with the above by approaching global leader in SAP Security & GRC, ToggleNow. The SAP Partner’s solution was building an intelligent AI Agent designed to automate the management of GRC mitigating controls. This agent delivers significant benefits as so:
- The agent runs in the background and identifies when a GRC Firefighter log is generated. It then evaluates the log on pre-defined rules such as activities involved, master data changes, financial transactions and so on.
- AI Agent will close the Firefighter log when there are no critical activities.
- In case if the log report satisfies the rules, the Firefighter log will be updated and sent to the controller for a detailed review.
The impact of this intelligent automation extends across various operational needs:
- Improved Compliance: The Agent eliminates audit gaps, ensuring timely action on the Firefighter logs. Now, the logs that require detailed scrutiny are only assigned to the Firefighter ID controllers.
- Resource Optimization: Automation frees up the Operations and Support team for higher-value activities.
- Enhanced Scalability: The system’s flexibility allows organizations to scale compliance efforts with minimal investment.
Additionally, the second automation enabled the client to significantly reduce unnecessary spends and effectively utilize the existing licenses.
What this means for SAPinsiders
- Critical Gaps in SAP GRC Access Control: SAP Access Control is a robust tool, but it lacks essential features and proactive monitoring that can be automated with the user of AI agents. These shortcomings result in inefficiencies and compliance risks, especially in high-stakes environments. These gaps force organizations to rely on manual processes, diverting valuable resources and increasing the risk of errors and delays.
- Innovative Automation with ToggleNow’s AI Agents: ToggleNow addressed many challenges in SAP GRC with its intelligent AI Agents designed to automate various tasks which includes request management, and enabling various controls. These virtual agents operates in the background and work 24/7, notify relevant stakeholders, and take predefined actions as needed. Periodic reviews ensure that the Security is maintained efficiently.
- Transformative Results from Intelligent Automation: SAPinsider’s recent research in The CIO’s Transformation Report Card showed that automation and standardization of business processes is the top transformation project (52%) for CIOs today. Automation optimizes resource utilization by freeing up Operations and Support teams to focus on higher-value tasks. Additionally, the scalable nature of ToggleNow’s solution can allow organizations to expand their compliance efforts efficiently, minimizing investment while maximizing operational impact.
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