GRC: Big Thing in Dynamics AX 2009 RTM

GRC. You probably haven't heard or read a lot about it, but it will be a major topic of conversation at the upcoming Convergence conference in Orlando next month, and beyond.

It stands for ‘Governance, Risk and Compliance Platform', and it will be one of the major new features in the new release of Dynamics AX 2009, due out about the middle of this year (aka: DAX 5.0).

GRC is being talked about a lot by the top level management of Microsoft Business Solutions because of its growing importance in managing corporate governance and regulatory matters. CVP Kirill Tatarinov discussed it at this past year's EMEA Convergence in October of 2007.

"GRC, Governance, Risk and Compliance platform, delivered within the AX product, will be one of the more significant and important" upcoming features, - Tatarinov stated.

This was the first real recorded mention of GRC being slated as one of the more significant new offerings in Dynamics AX 2009..

At Convergence, I would expect the features of GRC in AX 2009 to get a lot of attention-especially in terms of where it fits for Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), and other possible compliance requirements. Its relationship to risk and governance tells us GRC inclusion could lead to more business process management layered functionality for Dynamics AX 2009, instead of being outside of Dynamics AX.

If you want further proof GRC is going to be a hot topic as a major new feature in Dynamics AX 2009, Tatarinov, on Feb. 4th released a Dynamics AX video in which he discussed the upcoming release of Dynamics AX 2009,including further mention of 'Governance, Risk and Compliance Platform' or GRC being a major part of that upcoming release.

For both public and private companies, this new offering is going to significantly open the door for obtaining valuable insights into underlying business processes. This could in turn lead to more processes being tracked and adapted to urgent business issues at hand via Dynamics.