OpenPages Introduces Next-Generation Software Platform for Governance, Risk and Compliance Management

OpenPages®, the leading provider of governance, risk and compliance management (GRCM) solutions, today announced the availability of the OpenPages Governance Platform(SM) 5.0. With new and enhanced modules for Operational Risk Management, Financial Controls Management, General Compliance Management and IT Governance, the OpenPages Governance Platform unites an organization's governance, risk and compliance initiatives into a single management system.

The OpenPages Governance Platform 5.0 provides a modular and integrated approach to governance, risk and compliance management, enabling organizations to:

--  Manage risk and compliance across a multitude of regulations,
    including financial reporting, privacy, industry and more

--  Understand the interdependencies between processes, risks and controls
    that are shared across business units and regulations to help companies
    better manage the critical risks that have the biggest effect on
    performance

--  Implement a unified and simplified approach to managing enterprise
    risk to reduce redundancy, minimize complexity and maximize efficiency

The OpenPages Governance Platform and suite of four modules empower organizations to share the management of processes, risks and controls within and across governance, risk and compliance disciplines. Business processes and controls managed for operational risk purposes can be shared or linked with similar or related processes for financial controls management, general compliance or IT governance.

The OpenPages Governance Platform enables organizations to unify their governance, risk and compliance initiatives in a strategic, proactive manner to better understand the state of risks that can impact their business and to see the effectiveness of controls that monitor and mitigate those risks. As a result, organizations can reduce unexpected outcomes, become more efficient and effective, improve top-line and bottom-line results, and increase company valuation.

"Organizations today face a broad range of governance challenges, from compliance with a multitude of regulations, to managing the risks that occur in daily business operations and in information technology systems," said Michael J. Duffy, President and CEO of OpenPages. "The OpenPages Governance Platform provides a single system of record that unites risk and compliance initiatives throughout the enterprise, so organizations can manage across all their enterprise risk requirements, while reducing the cost and complexity and gaining the assurance that those risks are mitigated, loss is avoided and regulatory requirements are met."

"While the Sarbanes-Oxley Act still gets a lot of attention, it's only one of many concerns companies wrestle with," said John Hagerty in the January 2007 AMR Research Alert, "OpenPages Extends GRC Platform with IT and General Compliance Management." "Document and records retention, code of conduct/training requirements, and risk management concerns all show up as concerns for most companies. Anecdotally, we've been hearing these concerns for a while from business and IT leadership, and now we're seeing them in the numbers as well."

New Modules Manage Risk in Operations, IT Operations and Compliance with Numerous Regulatory Mandates

The OpenPages Governance Platform 5.0 introduces two new modules that enable organizations to manage risk in IT operations and compliance with multiple regulatory mandates:

--  OpenPages GCM(SM) automates the ongoing test, review, attestation and
    remediation of industry and privacy compliance processes, while helping to
    identify similarities between regulations to reduce redundancy and
    duplication of effort. Actionable decision support -- in the form of
    interactive dashboards and reports -- provide General Counsel and Chief
    Compliance Officers the confidence that compliance is achieved, risks are
    mitigated and corporate policies and procedures are enforced. (See
    OpenPages Introduces General Compliance Management Solution, 01/22/07.)

--  OpenPages ITG(SM) facilitates excellence in Information Technology
    (IT) governance by aligning IT process, policy, risk and operations
    management with corporate business initiatives, strategy, and operational
    standards.  Leveraging a core shared-services open architecture; OpenPages
    ITG makes IT governance achievable, enabling organizations to sustain
    compliance across multiple IT best practice frameworks (including Cobit,
    ITIL and ISO 17799) and regulations while managing internal IT control and
    risk according to the business processes they support.  (See OpenPages
    Introduces Information Technology Governance Solution, 01/22/07.)

The OpenPages Governance Platform 5.0 also enhances the capabilities of the company's existing modules for operational risk management and financial controls management:

--  OpenPages ORM delivers several significant enhancements within the
    OpenPages 5.0 Governance Platform to further enable organizations to manage
    operational risk in a centralized manner across the organization.
    OpenPages ORM now supports extensions to loss events as well as a
    comprehensive scenario analysis capability.  OpenPages ORM can also
    integrate with external loss databases to provide enhanced analysis and
    decision-support capabilities for risk professionals.

--  OpenPages FCM is the market-leading software solution for compliance
    with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and similar worldwide financial reporting
    regulations. It automates an organization's entire compliance lifecycle --
    from design and documentation, through test, review, approval and
    certification. Combining full document management, powerful workflow and
    interactive reporting capabilities, OpenPages FCM makes compliance
    procedures more efficient while providing executive management with
    assurance that the organization is meeting its compliance requirements.