Keeping the lights on (and GRC) for a utility company

Opportunity

A Pacific Northwest utility company’s governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) platform was due to have its support expire in 4 months. This lack of support created several potential critical risks: internal compliance, external compliance, and overall system control risk. A Pepper Foster consultant was selected to work with the client to strategize an approach and define several key requirements. This included upgrading the GRC platform’s capabilities so that it could integrate with ERP peripheral systems, while also preparing them for a substantial ERP upgrade the following year.

Solution

In collaboration with Finance and IT stakeholders, the consultant had to quickly strategize and organize an executive steering team for the project, manage the selection of an implementation partner, and develop a critical project infrastructure to align with a very aggressive and complicated project schedule.

Outcome

The client’s GRC platform was successfully upgraded to the new supported version with no lapse in support or compliance, and the overall project was finished on schedule and on budget. The upgrade has also provided the client the necessary direction and project infrastructure for future phases of the project. The successful delivery of this initiative also resulted in the Pepper Foster Consultant being asked to take on another long term mission critical project for the organization.