Corporate governance risk and compliance software firm Cura South Africa has launched a risk-management software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, which provides a subscription-based system for companies to manage their business risks and continuity plans according to international standards.

The platform is a Web-based application hosted in Cura South Africa’s local data centres that provides a best practice and compliance framework for managing risk and designing, managing and executing business continuity plans, says Cura South Africa sales and operations regional director Alex Roberts.

“The SaaS portal provides an easy-to-use visual interface with which all risk officers and personnel can get insight and manage the risks that they oversee, view compliance requirements and processes, and update business continuity plans within the company’s risk-management strategy.”

The platform is also aimed at easing the workflow required to implement a risk-based business continuity plan. A risk officer can create a new risk – such as the risk and impact of a local power outage on the company’s processes – and then drop it into the business continuity plan. The new risk will map to the framework and be placed into the appropriate part of the continuity plan, with the appropriate responses, he explains.

The graphical view is created using the underlying, and more conventional, risk registers. Advanced users can still view these registers and publish them for reporting and compliance purposes.

The SaaS platform also provides medium-sized companies with access to an enterprise-grade, risk-management system to manage their business’s risks and continuity according to international standards, says Roberts.

Users can easily compare risks within the SaaS platform to determine each risk’s relative priority and severity, and can easily reassign risks to categories that carry more appropriate weightings. Each change made is also fully traceable and all changes are instantly applied, enabling all users to access the most recent business continuity plans at all times.

The system even provides a checklist of actions for any aspect of the business continuity plan to easily view and carry out duties during an emergency or disruption.

Additionally, once companies have a detailed view of their business risk profile, they can use the information to determine their strategy, such as the extent to which the introduction of new systems or processes would disrupt processes. This enables companies to strategically plan and execute disruptive strategies while managing the risks, and acts as a strategic basis for innovation plans and business agility, he says.

Further, the system helps companies to meet their legal and compliance risk-management requirements.

“Cura has significant global experience in helping large companies to meet their onerous compliance and risk management requirements in many different countries and jurisdictions. Similarly, Cura South Africa will release additional components of the SaaS system to meet local legal and compliance requirements, as well as new legislation that will introduce yet more compliance requirements,” concludes Roberts.