SAP GRC, ERP, Risk Management, Access Control
Today, many organizations are going fully digital in the business world, and this digitization is helping them perform tasks and duties more efficiently.

The increase in the use of technology and related software tools has also led to a rise in attacks on businesses. Through different social engineering means, hackers attempt to break through the boundaries of an organization to steal their data and money to use for nefarious purposes. This means that there is a problem that needs to be solved, and the perfect solution is SAP Security and GRC.

This article aims to educate the average man on the basics of SAP Security and GRC.

What are SAP Security and GRC?

SAP Security and GRC are a combination of several independent solutions used to protect an organization’s systems and data from internal and external attacks.

Now, let us look at the meanings of SAP Security and GRC independently.

SAP Security refers to the processes, strategies, and technologies brought together or deployed to ensure the protection of assets of the organization, whether at rest or in motion.

While SAP GRC is an acronym for Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing and Governance, Risk and Compliance. It is the act of bringing together reliably all the organization’s capabilities towards reliably achieving the goals and objectives of the organization while focusing on risks and acting with integrity and complying with set rules and regulations.


Security in SAP is crucial, so there are various criteria, classifications, and layers to cover. We will look at each aspect of security and give a brief explanation of each part.

In determining the security goals for individual processes in SAP, these criteria must be fulfilled.

These are referred to as the CIA triad, which means:

After the criteria for SAP Security have been fulfilled, an individual or organization needs to classify the levels of security.

The classification of security includes organizational security, physical security, and technical security.

Finally, one must note the different layers of security, which are: authentication, authorization, integrity, privacy, and obligation.


We have explained at the beginning of this article what SAP GRC means. Now, we will give a brief insight into the various modules available in SAP GRC.

We have seven (7) modules in SAP GRC, and we will be reviewing each of them below.

Access Control (AC) manages who should have access within the organization, what access they will have and what controls to put in place to ensure that access is given only to the right people based on their job descriptions. There are various sub-modules that we have within the access control solution that analyze risk and ensure that incompatible activities are not given to a particular employee, keep the assets of the organization safe, prevent leakages, and prevent the abuse of those privileges within the system.

It is possible for an individual who has access to specific data to use them for personal benefit or gain inappropriately; therefore, access control is vital to an organization’s security.
Process Controls (PC) is about managing transactions and activities within the SAP system. It has various tools that manage controls, evaluate and report on those controls, whether manually or automatically, to ensure that risks within the processes are better managed.

Risk Management (RM) essentially anticipates, estimates, and works with the unknown. The solution is designed to estimate the impact of the occurrence of that unknown threat on the operations and assets that an organization values so that the organization can anticipate such and be able to counter and limit them. There are various tools within the risk management solution.

Audit Management (AM) simplifies audit performance, whether from the internal control end or the external control responsibilities, i.e., external audit. It simplifies the provision of documents and information, the checks that are performed, and documentation required for us to provide evidence that will support whatever conclusions we have from the performance of the audit.

Business Integrity Screening (BIS) manages various transactions to ensure that leakages are prevented, rules that have been put in place in relation to every transaction are enforced, and alerts are generated whenever violations that can possibly cause damage or loss to the assets of the organization occur. This solution sits on top of the big data solution of SAP HANA.

Enterprise Threat Detection (ETD) manages threats to the organization. When threats are detected, it acts swiftly in a proactive manner to prevent damage from occurring to the assets of the organization. It tracks activities, records, and transactions executed, not just at the application stack, but also at the infrastructure stack, unlike other solutions that only analyze logs of the infrastructure components. This solution goes beyond log analysis to provide real-time enriched information that could generate immediate action to put a stop to a compromise before severe damages are caused to assets and data.


Global Trade Services allow organizations to support and define import and export trade processes within their systems. As a result, it greatly reduces the time and costs of ensuring that the organization follows global trade regulations and offers visibility into the supply chain. At the same time, goods are being shipped and resolve issues from clearing with customs timeously.

This solution is also used to screen buyers and vendors to protect against doing business with restricted or denied individuals and organizations, i.e., those on terrorist watchlist.

From this article, we have been able to get a basic understanding of SAP Security and GRC. This little information is a doorway to achieving greatness in SAP GRC as a professional consultant for individuals and protecting and managing organizations.

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