News archive // 2008 // Compliance to GRACE the Boardroom

Logicalis Launches GRACE to Ease Compliance Management; Reduce Operational Risk and Burden of Policy Lifecycle

Slough, 16th July 2008: International solutions provider, Logicalis, today announces the launch of GRACE (Governance, Risk and Compliance Engine), an automated policy management solution that enables organisations to simplify and reduce the operational risk and burden of maintaining and enforcing best-practice compliance and governance.

Operated via a central portal, GRACE eases the process of creating, modifying, authorising, reporting and tracking multiple policies, procedures and guidelines associated with compliance, governance and disaster recovery strategies.
Tom Kelly, managing director of Logicalis, comments, “Compliance has penetrated every department of a business, from HR, finance and legal through to marketing and the supply chain. Failing to comply with legal and regulatory obligations such as FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) and anti-discrimination legislation is a significant operational risk issue and GRACE is designed to enable our customers to considerably reduce this risk.”

Whilst compliance stands as a wider business issue, the IT department is often called upon to maintain the numerous policies, and according to Kelly this has a two pronged effect:

“Firstly, valued IT resource is diverted from delivering innovation back into the business, subsequently impacting that organisation’s commercial and competitive development; and secondly, IT staff can quickly become disillusioned and dissatisfied by mundane operational tasks, resulting in employee churn. Implementing automated software that can multi-manage compliance policies will enable IT departments to get on with what they are challenged daily by stakeholders to do - innovate to improve profits.”

Presented as a three-step programme – create, distribute, report – GRACE aims to transform policy delivery, awareness and compliance, by enabling organisations to efficiently and cost-effectively deliver powerful and consistent policy messages. In doing so, businesses will be empowered, not hindered, by the exponential growth of commercial regulations.

“Furthermore,” adds Lewis Honour, head of security, operational risk and compliance at Logicalis, “the automated nature of GRACE ensures that policies continuously evolve and adapt to industry and company changes. This not only helps organisations avoid the financial impact of contravening compliance measures, but the automated upgrades, which require user consent, increases awareness across the business.”

In addition to providing a fully automated and integrated system for managing policy management activity, GRACE incorporates the following features:

  • Simple user interface
  • Role-based enterprise security model
  • Dashboard & drill-down reporting
  • Core database
  • Directory integration
  • Management of user groups
  • Enhanced workflow capabilities
  • Improved document editing and management
  • Multi-language support
  • Alerting and escalation
  • Full and secure audit trails

GRACE will ship from 16 July.  For more information see http://www.uk.logicalis.com/business_issues/governance_grace.asp

 

About Logicalis

Logicalis is an international provider of integrated ICT solutions, delivering secure, converged computing and communications infrastructure and services.
We can provide the architecture, deployment, integration and management of networks and systems to deliver leading edge solutions that create value for our customers and meet their business needs now and into the future.

Logicalis is a trusted provider of multi-vendor solutions and services operating in the most complex and challenging business environments. Our relationships with the industry's leading technology suppliers, combined with our business understanding enable you to invest with confidence.

The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited (DTC), a $3.2 billion multi-national Group listed on the AIM market of the LSE and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. With international headquarters in the UK, the Logicalis Group has operations in the US, UK, Germany, and South America.

Logicalis UK has achieved independent certification for its integrated management system, information security, IT service management offerings and its environmental standards: ISO 9001; ISO 27001; ISO 20000 and ISO14001 respectively.

For more information, please contact:
Charlotte Sandy/Jennifer Manning
Cohesive Communications
T: +44 (0) 1291 626200
E: logicalis@cohesive.uk.com