Workiva : Automating Grc To Accelerate Business Produtivity

Workiva

Julie Iskow, Chief operating officer, WorkivaJulie Iskow, Chief operating officer
Traditional governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software lack version control of data and reports. As a result, businesses often struggle to locate the updated information as each individual has a different version of a file. The problem becomes more complicated in larger teams as nobody knows which document or spreadsheet is most current. To this end, as a leading provider of cloud-based compliance and regulatory reporting solutions, Workiva eliminates the burden of organizing, locating, and updating information. “Workiva has years of experience solving complex business problems for the world’s largest organizations, including managing and reporting financial, non-financial and ESG data, and meeting changing regulations head on,” said Julie Iskow, chief operating officer of Workiva.

Designed to solve the business problems at the intersection of data, process, and people, Workiva’s solutions change the way companies manage and report their data. Its proprietary data management engine, Wdesk automates and streamlines the data collection and preparation of risk and compliance reports. This intuitive platform is based on a single instance, multi-tenant software applications deployed in the cloud. It has a full package of productivity applications, including word processor, spreadsheets, and presentation decks. Documents constantly hither and thither across an organization until those have to be submitted to external committees. Though these files vary in formats such as spreadsheets and presentations and reside in emails or shared drives, the data in most documents is often the same or correlated. For example, the pie-chart in a presentation created by a marketing department is based on a spreadsheet generated by the sales team. Wdesk allows users to link data in text or numbers that automatically updates any changes made anywhere throughout all instances of that data.

Workiva has years of experience solving complex business problems for the world’s largest organizations, including managing and reporting financial, non-financial and ESG data, and meeting changing regulations head on

Meaning, the consistency issues with conflicting versions living in various locations no longer exist. With Wdesk’s audit trail and permissions feature, users can collaborate with control in real-time in data-linked documents. The connected data, documents, and teams result in enhanced efficiency, better transparency, and reduced risk of errors. The platform ingests data from various applications and systems, including enterprise resource planning, governance risk and compliance, human capital management, customer relationship management systems, and other third-party cloud and on-premise applications.

Solving Big Picture Problem with Engine of Innovations

Many large corporations entrust Workiva with their most sensitive data as its software offers complete control over information and content with a detailed permission set—on a single document section, an entire document, or group of documents. More than 3,723 organizations, including 75 percent of Fortune 500® companies, have subscribed to Workiva’s platform for at least one of its solutions. Even during challenging times such as COVID, Workiva’s team delivered strong revenue growth, operating income, and cash flow. Their values-based culture sustained them as the team remained strong and connected with each other and clients— working remotely. In fact, the macro business trends such as significant increases in cloud platform deployments, digital transformations, and remote workplaces worked in Workiva’s favor. They benefited from the rising demand for RegTech and XBRL and have noticed an increase in the adoption of their platform and fit-for-purpose solutions. The also company observed more than 20 percent growth in the subscription and support revenue, generating record bookings.

Furthermore, there was broad-based demand for its next-generation platform with 77 percent of new solution bookings outside SEC and SEDAR offerings. Workiva has recently refreshed its branding to complement its new winning aspiration to be the world’s leading platform for simplifying complex work. They view complexity as data complexity, business process, workflow complexity, and end report complexity and then accordingly help clients simplify these universal business and compliance issues. “Our new platform is more open and scalable. We can now more quickly build and deliver new fit-for-purpose solutions that solve specific business problems and play a broader role in our customers’ digital transformation initiatives,” says Julie. Users can easily adapt it to define, automate, and transform their business processes in real-time. Also, it can be set up for operation within short timeframes and requires minimal technical expertise as opposed to on-premise structures that need months for developing and testing software.

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