by Jason Rohlf – November 3, 2009
“Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders”
— from the poem Chicago by Carl Sandburg
There is no place in the world quite like Chicago. Of course, having grown up in the Chicagoland Area (code for suburbs), I can be considered slightly biased. Still, I have encountered but a few individuals in my life who don’t consider Chicago to be a world-class city. Given that all four of my grandparents lived here (three of whom are multi-generational Chicagoans), I have a special connection to this city, and I take great pride in its history and work ethic. Carl Sandburg was on to something in the first stanza of his iconic 1916 poem when he portrayed Chicago as diverse, skilled and hardworking; I don’t know of another author who so perfectly captured the very essence of this city and its people.
OK, enough of me getting sentimental about my hometown. Having attended Archer’s GRC Roadshow stop in Chicago, though, I think my literary reference may be spot on. You want diverse? During the part of our Roadshows where we ask members of the Archer Community to share something unique about themselves, you quickly find out that you are among teachers, pilots, Porsche racers, world travelers, skateboarders, identical twins, poker players and fossil hunters. How about skilled? Security, compliance, audit, risk management and professional services personnel fit that bill. Hardworking? Strong work ethic was evident in these folks, so much so that I’d say even the hog butchers, tool makers and stackers of wheat would be impressed.
Against the backdrop of this great city, KPMG hosted the sixth stop on the Archer GRC Roadshow, attended by more than 50 professionals who have a stake and/or interest in Archer’s GRC solutions and who came to learn more about our product roadmap. Sean Pyle, Archer’s Senior Vice President of Global Sales, started the morning session with an overview of Archer’s GRC Ecosystem and our community-centered approach to product innovation.
Vice President of Products Pete Novosel then gave the group a preview of Archer’s upcoming release, the Archer SmartSuite Framework 5.0. His demonstration focused on performance and scalability enhancements and led to some good conversation around the new features as well as ideas on future enhancements to the product.
Next, we had the opportunity to hear two Archer case studies. The first was presented by Pete Dooley, a director with KPMG. Pete spoke about the Third-Party Risk Management (3pRM) application that KPMG has developed using Archer’s Vendor Management solution. The application gives users a vehicle for comprehensively assessing third parties and includes a robust financial analysis tool. The crowd then heard from Joe Agnew, Chief Information Security Officer with Follett Corporation. Joe discussed how Follett has used Archer’s E-GRC capabilities to enable an effective, sustainable and scalable GRC program, allowing his group to easily achieve Senior Management approval of the program in the process.
After a lively networking lunch, Archer’s Director of GRC Product Management, David Walter, outlined Archer’s GRC Roadmap and discussed the concept of “operationalizing” GRC. Focusing on the existence of key interdependencies between Archer’s solutions, David demonstrated how an organization using Archer can move their GRC process from tactical to strategic.
There are many reasons I was glad to attend the Archer Roadshow here in The Greatest City in the World (as locals affectionately refer to Chicago). I had the chance to connect with some great new people and think about ways I can help them solve whatever problems they’re facing at work. I also got to establish deeper connections with other members of the Archer team. And of course, I received an always enjoyable, always invigorating dose of home: the City of the Big Shoulders.