Governance, Risk & Compliance

Bridging the Gap between Enterprise Expectations and SMB Situations

Your Not in Kansas Anymore

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
- Seneca

Contracts and conditions written into commitments to third-parties can be the kiss of death. You can't set your heading correctly, or respond to adversity in a competative space with any coherent strategy until you fully grasp the legal and regulatory standards being imposed on you because of your unique situation. The Enterprise has turned this into a bonafide artform, offloading process and supply risk to its vendors and partners with well-honed legal statements in written agreements, and with monsterous resource bases to employ high-cost full time employees that manage these risks and maneuvers continuously. The government also regulates and sets expectations in the interest of consumer safety, and national defense (usually a decade after any given capability exists, and never without hundreds of pages of disjointed documenation that was written by commitee). Both of these slam into SMB companies with alarming regularity when they rise to primary supplier or strategic partnership relationships. In cyber, the new reality of nation-state level attacks, and criminal-syndicate alliances amassing into fewer, larger and more efficient shared resource pools, is an undisputed fact. The federal government also intends to enforce CMMC v2 on all its primary contractors as soon as the end of 2023 (and by extension through all subcontractors as the requirements naturally ripple out), also fact. The False Claims Act allows these to now be effectively enforced by either the government or private parties with severe penalties, this is also undisputed fact.

We Stand in the Gap for You

Approaching this problem traditionally -with insourced staff and IT empires- will be a fiduciary massacre for you. The accepted reason that only enterprise and government entities maintain cyber governance, risk, and compliance arms in their organization is because the conventional approach requires an amount of operational overhead that is frankly insane to demand from any SMB organization. Most realize this rather quickly, but dont realize its connection to the value of their contracts and business relationships until they have eyes trained to see the poison pills written into their agreements or try to qualify for cyber insurance after one too many close calls. We can help share the load with you. We are in the business of spinning-up 'grassroots' GRC functions so that you can continue to compete and persue your strategic interests; and can lean on Highground to guard those interests, with proper governance consulting, in measured doses that are appropriate to you organiation. So that you won't being left "holding the bag" for the whole thing, and competing for GRC talent in a game where Government and Enterprise make the rules and hold all the cards. We stand in the gap for you so you can continue doing what you do best, and be able to sleep at night while doing it.

Begin with the End in Mind

To summarize, GRC capabilities are generally unheard of in the SMB space, but are also expected if you want a seat at the table for big-ticket topline opportunities. The first step in capitalizing on these capabilities and winning from a security and compliance perspective is to take stock of your business surroundings, your internal capital in terms of people, processes, and technology, and what is being expected of you by others. With that in hand -to apply the Covey Principle- you begin with the end in mind. We translate these factors into applicable governance frameworks and controls that will get you across the finish line, and with continuous collaboration we can equip you to stay nimble when the finish line moves again.