Transforming Global ERP Governance with ITGC& ITAC Monitoring for a Major Restaurant Chain

When a major global restaurant group set out to modernize its operations with a sweeping ERP rollout across hundreds of legal entities and regions, it faced compliance, access, and identity challenges unprecedented in scale and complexity.

To solve these risks, the organization needed more than a one-time migration or augmentation; it required continuous, unified identity governance and ongoing control orchestration. SafePaaS responded—delivering automation and resilience that extended far beyond legacy approaches.

The Challenges:

Privileged Access & “Hypercare” Support
From the outset, the System Integrator, Managed Service Provider, and audit partners required deep access into the client’s production systems to provide critical “hypercare” support for deployment and ongoing managed services. Senior executives authorized these elevated privileges, but every exception posed a new risk: overprivileged access threatened key business cycles—procure-to-pay, finance, HR—and invited scrutiny from both internal and external auditors.

Audit & Change Management Risks

Auditors quickly identified several risks:

Non-employees held extensive privileges, often beyond internal policy controls.
Production system changes, hundreds each quarter, were tracked manually, often in spreadsheets, making errors or oversights almost inevitable.

The reconciliation of ServiceNow SDLC tickets against real ERP changes was time-consuming, costly, and prone to control gaps.

Technical Pain Points

Supplier Onboarding: Complex supplier onboarding required updates to banking details and critical data migration, increasing the risk of misconfigurations or fraudulent activity if controls were manual or not validated in real time.

Patch Management: Applying SaaS patches to the ERP led to hundreds of configuration changes across finance modules (e.g., journal source setups, general ledger feature migrations). Without automated change tracking, these updates posed a high risk of control gaps, missed approvals, or unauthorized changes.

Solution Architecture & Execution

Dynamic Control Selection and Mapping
Collaborated with auditors and client teams to select and precisely map 70–75 ITGC and ITAC controls.

Mapped controls to five core processes:

Procure-to-Pay (P2P)
Revenue Recognition
Hire-to-Retire (HR)

Financial Reporting

IT Change Management

Implementation and Continuous Monitoring

ERP Metadata Scanning: Used SafePaaS Catalog for rapid scanning and deployment of controls—accelerating from weeks to days.
Automation Overlays: SafePaaS DataProbe and DataPaaS augmented existing audit policies, covering fields and controls not natively addressed. These automated continuous monitoring for configuration changes, supplier updates, and patch management, enabling audit teams to catch issues—such as unauthorized role changes or unapproved supplier configurations—before financial statements were at risk.

Monitored user actions, configuration changes, and master data adjustments in real time.

Implementation and Continuous Monitoring

ERP Metadata Scanning: Used SafePaaS Catalog for rapid scanning and deployment of controls—accelerating from weeks to days.
Automation Overlays: SafePaaS DataProbe and DataPaaS augmented existing audit policies, covering fields and controls not natively addressed. These automated continuous monitoring for configuration changes, supplier updates, and patch management, enabling audit teams to catch issues—such as unauthorized role changes or unapproved supplier configurations—before financial statements were at risk.

Monitored user actions, configuration changes, and master data adjustments in real time.

ServiceNow Integration
- Linked every SDLC change ticket to actual ERP activity, validated who made every change, and whether it matched the approved request.
- Automated variance alerting and escalation for unmatched or unauthorized changes.
Configuration Compare & Audit Readiness
- Automated configuration validation across all ERP regions and instances.
- Centralized, real-time evidence capture and traceability, eliminating last-minute “audit catchup.”
Ongoing Role Hygiene
- SafePaaS enabled continuous mapping of people roles to system roles for persistent role cleanliness, complementing the initial migration with ongoing monitoring and alerts.

Outcomes & Measurable Impact

80%+ reduction in managed service and audit costs through automation
SafePaaS replaced manual, labor-intensive audit processes and expensive reconciliation cycles with fully automated controls and integrations. The client redeployed both internal staff and external partners to higher-value work, reducing post-deployment audit and support hours.
90%+ decrease in SDLC reconciliation errors—risk of “invisible” changes virtually eliminated
Seamless ServiceNow integration automatically correlates every change ticket to its corresponding system changes. Unmatched changes are flagged instantly, closing gaps and eliminating undocumented modifications.
Audit readiness within 90 days for all global entities
Rapid deployment and real-time monitoring enable faster audit readiness, replacing periodic manual check-ins with live evidence and compliance reporting across hundreds of entities.
Continuous compliance and on-demand audit trails
Automated, field-level monitoring gives risk and compliance teams real-time visibility of every control, exception, and mitigation action. All audit evidence is centralized, timestamped, and instantly accessible.
Risk reduction in fraud, cyber threats, and supply chain disruptions
Real-time detection and escalation resolve exceptions before they impact business continuity or financial accuracy. Active governance maps user activity and configuration changes enterprise-wide, making it easier to remediate fraud, unauthorized access, and third-party risks.

Lessons Learned & Best Practices

Modern frameworks win: Adopt ITGC/ITAC control mapping in line with market best practices.
Automation is non-negotiable: Spreadsheet-driven compliance breaks down at global scale—automation is essential for reliable compliance and scalable governance.
Deep integration matters: Automated ServiceNow–ERP links underpin SDLC governance and rapid reconciliation.
Tailored controls: Custom mapping of controls to the client’s unique risk profile and business cycles.

Executive sponsorship is essential: Leadership alignment drives rapid adoption and transparency for privileged exceptions.

Through SafePaaS’s ongoing automation, real-time integration, and unified identity orchestration, this restaurant brand enjoys scalable compliance and multi-million dollar measurable savings—turning daunting complexity into business resilience and competitive advantage.