KnowBe4 KCM GRC Platform (discontinued) vs. TrustArc vs. Workiva

KnowBe4 KCM GRC Platform is well suited for a company that knows what they're doing compliance wise and needs to save time doing it. It won't be something you can spend a few hours on and then put on autopilot. It was made to create a rhythm within your own team, and you'll need to have the buy-in. It's useful for IT and Legal teams that already have a vendor risk management process, but want to have a better handle on it. Giving an outside auditor read-only access to a scope is also a huge time saver.

Incentivized

TrustArc is well suited for a small-to-medium sized digital organization that is concerned about its ability to fulfill data privacy requirements. TrustArc offers an API integration to allow users to handle a larger volume of requests, but I don't have personal experience with this feature. It is a requirement that a cross-functional data privacy team be established in your organization to get the most use out of this product.

Incentivized

Wdesk is best suited for companies with demanding SEC filings and documents, with multiple revisions due to auditor/counsel review, and where financial reporting is extremely manual. Wdesk really helps take out the potential errors out of extremely manual processes, and helps automate regular financial reporting by allowing companies to link financial information and build customized flows of their information into financial statements and other documents (such as presentations or other internal reporting).

Incentivized

• Mapping controls across different compliance frameworks. It saves you a ton of time and energy!
• Performing risk assessments at the granularity that you prefer, splitting assessments across departments and teams if you wish.

Incentivized

• Email verification
• Frontend UI
• Flexible configurations
• Easy-to-follow audit trail - each step of the process is clearly defined
• Integrated process flow - all communication back to data subject is handled through TrustArc

Incentivized

• The biggest strength of the program for our team is that multiple users can work in the document at the same time. Multiple users can be in the program updating financial statements, footnotes, MD&A - all without stepping on each other's toes.
• Rolling forward the documents from one period to the next is pretty simple. Links to source documents are maintained and new ones can be added without much hassle.
• Edits and changes can be made right up until the last minute before filing. There is no waiting period or pencils-down period unless we enforce one ourselves - the Financial Reporting team is in control of the timing of our filings.

Incentivized

• Vendor management has a few kinks to work out. We want to be able to do internal questionnaires for vendors as a compliance checklist before we sign off on a contract. Nothing in the works yet, but there are a few workarounds.
• The navigation between different tasks in scope is clunky, and it's easy to lose your place, and it forces you back to the main page of the scope to retrace your steps.

Incentivized

• Notification schemes - allowing different access levels to be notified when certain processes occur
• Two-factor authentication upon login is a desirable feature not implemented
• Standardized reporting on home dashboard

Incentivized

• The automation could be better. A lot of mass updates are done manually.
• Sometimes the system has connection issues and certain functions are down.
• The customer service could be more proactive to provide regular training and sharing updates on the software.
• Customer service could be better to help process the mass updates in a timely fashion.

Incentivized

Overall it's a good-to-go product because of its features. It's easy to set up, meets requirements, has quality support, etc. So far, it has been working quite well for me, and I wish to continue using it for as long as it meets my requirements.

Incentivized

Support from KnowBe4 KCM GRC Platform is always great. It's always in-house localized support, with excellent response times, and dedicated Customer Success Managers to answer the bulk of your questions or take your suggestions and make them a feature request. They will also reach out at least quarterly and do health checks to make sure you're using the platform to the best of your ability.

Incentivized

Workiva's technical support is impeccable and undoubtedly one of the best. The times we needed them, they were super quick and willing to help. It works 24 hours a day, and there will always be someone to help with doubts or technical problems regarding the tool.

Incentivized

Quantivate and Fusion were the other two options we checked out. The quantity was high, and a good bit more expensive, but it was the best performing with its platform. They also had more modules that each cost extra to add to your subscription. KnowBe4 KCM GRC Platform was all-in-one and a little less mature, but the better buy. Fusion was hard to follow in the demo, and I was not overly impressed. I may have made my decision early enough in the demo to not pay much more attention to it.

Incentivized

OneTrust offers a similar product offering to TrustArc. Our organization had a legacy relationship with TrustArc with respect to its online cookie management preference solution. OneTrust product offerings do provide much of the same functionality as TrustArc and is worthy of consideration if you are evaluating vendors in this space.

Incentivized

We moved from a third party filer to doing it in house. Have seen demos of products like Active Disclosure, which has come a long way from the beta version I saw and but we are not too far gone with Wdesk for us to evaluate other products. When we first signed up with Webfilings, (former name of Workiva), there were no viable products in the market. I had seen an Oracle product and a beta version of Active Disclosure. It was not hard to see the ease and intuitive-screens, to guide one through the filing process. The excel-like spreadsheets were an added bonus.

Incentivized

• Just having the capacity to do things the right way, and formally, has driven some of our compliance efforts.
• Due to licensing limitations, we likely overspent on seats to the platform that we didn't need but also didn't want to miss out on.

Incentivized

• Allow organization to be compliant with data privacy laws is a requirement in 2021
• Flexible offering allows for control of both digital (cookie) and database record requests
• Sunk cost - organization requires this type of program, TrustArc is an established vendor in this space

Incentivized

• We spend less than we used to with a traditional printer.
• We have been able to do turn-on-a-dime equity offerings with last minute changes and still file on time.
• Inviting external legal into the platform has helped with communication but we actually suspect they spend MORE time (and billing) on our documents than they used to just simply because it's so easy to get at them anytime they want.

Incentivized