From GRC Awareness to GRC Maturity: What the IIA Zambia GRC Conference Revealed

The GRC conversation in Zambia is moving beyond awareness. Organisations are increasingly looking for ways to formalise risk functions, automate processes and connect governance, risk, compliance and audit through technology.

That was one of key takeaways from the IIA Zambia GRC Conference, where our internal GRC expert, Bianca Nyathi represented Cura and spoke with professionals from across the country’s governance, risk and compliance landscape.

Unlike traditional IIA events, the conference brought together a broader GRC audience, including internal auditors, risk practitioners and compliance managers. With around 300 attendees, the relatively focused setting also created more opportunities for direct conversations, including with senior managers and decision-makers.

A More Mature GRC Conversation

For Bianca, one of the most notable aspects of the conference was the maturity of the Zambian GRC market.

Many organisations are already using technology to support their GRC activities. The conversation, therefore, was not simply about whether organisations should adopt GRC technology. Instead, it was increasingly about whether the technology they have is delivering what they need.

“Quite a lot of organizations already have solutions,” Bianca observed. The next question, she found, was whether those solutions actually fit existing processes and requirements.

That distinction matters. As GRC programmes mature, technology becomes less about digitising individual activities and more about creating a connected operating model for managing risk and compliance.

Risk Management Is Becoming a More Defined Function

Another significant development was the growing formalisation of risk management within organisations.

According to Bianca, a number of Zambian ministries have recently received a mandate from the Ministry of Finance to establish standalone risk management departments. Historically, audit had often played a role in covering aspects of the risk function.

That appears to be changing.

As dedicated risk teams emerge, organisations will need processes, systems and reporting structures that can support these functions at scale. Bianca expects this shift to contribute to greater demand for automation as organisations build out their risk management capabilities.

The development points to a broader evolution in GRC: risk is increasingly being treated as a management discipline in its own right, rather than simply an extension of assurance.

AI and Cybersecurity Take Centre Stage

AI and cybersecurity were among the dominant themes at the conference.

The interest was not limited to the technology itself. For GRC professionals, the conversation increasingly centres on what AI means for risk, data, security and organisational decision-making.

Data sovereignty was another important consideration. Bianca highlighted requirements around keeping organisational information within Zambia, making the question of where GRC technology is deployed particularly relevant.

This creates an important consideration for organisations evaluating GRC platforms. Cloud deployment may offer flexibility, but there are circumstances where organisations require greater control over where their information resides.

For Bianca, Cura’s on-premise deployment capability was therefore particularly relevant to the discussions in Zambia, allowing organisations to host the solution within their own infrastructure.

At the same time, the growing interest in AI is creating expectations for GRC platforms to become more intelligent. Bianca discussed the AI capabilities planned for Cura’s NGX release, alongside the AI capabilities within its data analytics offering.

Breaking Down GRC Silos

Perhaps the most important conversation was less about individual technologies and more about how organisations connect their GRC functions.

When audit, risk and compliance operate independently, information can become fragmented. Teams may have different processes, different data and different views of the organisation’s risk environment.

A connected GRC approach offers another possibility.

Bianca highlighted the value of bringing audit, risk and compliance together on a single platform, enabling information to be shared across functions and supporting combined assurance. The objective is not simply consolidation, but creating a common view of organisational risk and performance, supported by reporting and dashboards.

The conversations at the conference suggested that this is becoming increasingly important as organisations look to move away from siloed approaches.

The Technology Gap Is Often About Fit

Interestingly, having a GRC system does not necessarily mean an organisation has solved its GRC challenges.

Bianca encountered organisations that already had technology in place but felt that there were shortcomings. Those gaps created conversations around what a better-fitting solution could provide.

This reflects a broader challenge for mature GRC programmes. As requirements become more sophisticated, organisations need platforms that can adapt to their processes rather than forcing those processes into rigid technology structures.

A Regional Challenge: Automation, AI and Affordability

Despite the specific characteristics of the Zambian market, many of the issues Bianca encountered are familiar across Southern Africa.

Organisations are looking for ways to work more efficiently and automate GRC processes. AI is becoming an increasingly common part of those conversations. At the same time, cost remains a significant consideration, with organisations looking for solutions that fit within allocated budgets.

The challenge, then, is balancing capability with accessibility: finding technology that can support increasingly sophisticated GRC requirements without becoming prohibitively expensive.

What Zambia’s GRC Landscape Signals

The IIA Zambia GRC Conference offered a useful snapshot of a market that appears to be moving into its next stage of maturity.

The conversations are shifting from whether GRC should be automated to how effectively it can be automated. Risk management is becoming more formally established, organisations are looking for better-fitting technology, and AI and cybersecurity are influencing the direction of the conversation.

For Bianca, the experience also reinforced the importance of listening to organisations on the ground. Beyond introducing Cura, the conference provided an opportunity to understand how Zambian organisations are approaching GRC, where their priorities lie and where technology can help them move forward.

The bottom line: Zambia’s GRC market is not waiting to catch up. The next phase will be defined by connected, automated and increasingly intelligent approaches to governance, risk and compliance.