What is our primary use case?
On the privacy front, we used the solution to meet many GDPR requirements, like maintaining a record of processing. We used the OneTrust data processing component or module to keep all the processing activity records. On the GRC front, we used the risk management and audit modules to manage risk assessments and IT audits within the organization.
What is most valuable?
OneTrust GRC is a SaaS (software as a service) platform. As an implementer, you don't need to do many technical configurations. Instead, you do the functional configurations, like setting up the rulesets to ensure they adapt to the rules within the organization. The solution was quite valuable because it included almost all the worldwide privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. You can configure the functional rules against the entity or country where the client may be located.
The organization I worked with operated in 35 African countries, with an office in France. So, GDPR was relevant, and these 35 countries where they have data protection laws were also relevant. The most valuable feature of the solution is that it already has visibility about all the data protection regulations or other cybersecurity regulations related to several countries.
What needs improvement?
The platform was not built in a way that allowed multinational entities to use it seamlessly. You could only create one organization. So you create the organization, and then you need to create countries. Suppose a bank had affiliates in Ghana and Kenya. We couldn't use the solution to ensure that a person in Kenya would only have access to things related to Kenya.
We had to improvise to do it, but it was quite obvious that the architecture was not designed for multinational companies like the bank I worked for, which had affiliates in 35 countries.
Another issue I had with the tool was regarding the controls. Suppose you have to audit an organization in the risk assessment against ISO 27001 or some other regulation. In some instances, the solution won't have the copyright or the license for a particular regulation. Even though you see ISO 27001 in the tool, you, as an entity, are supposed to buy those controls into the platform.
That made things difficult for us because now we needed to launch another request for a quotation or another RFT to get those regulations bought into the platform.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using OneTrust GRC for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
OneTrust owns the platform's hosting, and we have no visibility over the computer or background resources they manage. There were instances when we were working on the tool, and it froze. We had to send a ticket to OneTrust to look at it for us, whether it was our tenant's fault or a general problem across all tenants for all their clients.
I rate the solution an eight out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Privacy is in everything, and many organizations are trying to build platforms around it. A lot of them are also in the formative stages.
I rate the solution's scalability a six out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support is quite good. The support team responds whenever you reach out to them.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
Creating the rules in the OneTrust GRC platform requires a lot of technical knowledge of the product, which we didn't have. The solution didn't have a lot of training packages as part of the implementation. We were directed to the academy to enroll in some programs, but they did not fit our organization. It was quite a general training.
Because of the nature of our requirements, we thought the tool would tailor some training to train us properly so that we wouldn't face many issues while implementing or maintaining the tool within our environment. However, we didn't really have that. The training knowledge or training content that is better dedicated or aligned for a particular client was lacking. So, it was pretty difficult.
On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a six out of ten.
What about the implementation team?
The solution's deployment took a long time, about six to ten months. We started in December and completed it around July.
To deploy the solution, we fed it with our own data. It's like training a model. We create a tenant for you that has nothing in it. You have to create your own organizational parameters. We needed to develop the rules for each of the solution's modules. OneTrust did well in terms of giving us a road map for each of the module's deployments.
The tasks were divided between whatever the OneTrust engineer would do and what our engineers would do. We worked according to that plan, but some modules depended on others. For example, you cannot deploy another module if you've not deployed a particular module.
The deployment model was based on a shared plan between OneTrust engineers and our engineers. We had to feed a lot of information to the platform and create a lot of templates and rules that were suitable or only meant for our environment.
What was our ROI?
The solution saved us a lot of time. We did many things with Excel templates and other things we had created ourselves. OneTrust GRC allowed us to automate many things and saved us a lot of time for other tasks.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
OneTrust GRC is an expensive solution. OneTrust told us that the solution's pricing given on their website is for one entity coming to them. They told us that if the price of a module is 4,000 dollars, and we buy it for use in about 35 different countries, it's not a good bargain for them. For us, they did a different negotiation.
They treated us as a wholesaler or an enterprise customer even though the product didn't make room for that. OneTrust GRC is a very simple product that doesn't have small and medium business modules and enterprise modules. It was the same solution, but they negotiated a different cost for us because we were an enterprise client. It was quite expensive, and we spent around 200 to 300 thousand dollars.
On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing OneTrust GRC, we evaluated other options, but most of them were limited in their scope. Some of them only did privacy and not data governance. Some of them are doing GRC, but they are not doing privacy or data governance.
The value we saw in OneTrust was that it attempted to deal with all these areas of concern for organizations. These areas included privacy, consent and preferences, data governance, data discovery, third-party risk, GRC, attacks and compliance, and sustainability. OneTrust GRC had all these modules, and it made a lot of sense to go with it instead of buying other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
OneTrust GRC is a SaaS (software as a service) platform. You can create a profile for your organization. The solution is updated with new features from the back end.
The solution has different modules within it, including a module that allows us to do a risk assessment. The one very important thing the solution has is building templates. If you want to conduct a risk assessment, you have to create a template for that risk assessment.
The template will consist of a questionnaire-type approach in which you build some rules. When you initiate an assessment, you are required to answer the questionnaire based on the organization or that particular risk assessment.
OneTrust has to mature the product, improve its understanding of how multinational organizations operate, and build an architecture to suit them. Multinational companies that have branches in different countries would struggle with the solution. I recommend an enterprise version mainly targeted at multinational entities or big enterprises.
Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure