The latest piece of good news for companies seeking to make compliance a performance enhancer instead of a reactive drag on earnings comes from Cartesis, which in mid-March announced that it had bought the right to offer its customers the specialized BWise governance, risk and compliance (GRC) software and have it work smoothly within their Cartesis business performance management (BPM) system.

Relabeled Cartesis Governance, it will sit side-by-side with the other modules of the Cartesis 10 Suite and "will integrate back into Cartesis Finance," says James Fisher, Cartesis' director of product marketing. He insists that current Cartesis users will be able to license and integrate the new governance piece easily, and he points out that Cartesis will enjoy a competitive edge when it comes signing up new customers that want a single source for all data related to financial reporting, performance management and GRC.

The largely separate current BPM and GRC software offerings cover complementary activities and are natural candidates for the convergence that is sweeping the financial technology marketplace, observes Kathleen Wilhide, research director for GRC and BPM solutions at IDC, Wilmington, Del. "It's expected, and we've seen some partnering among vendors, but what Cartesis and BWise have announced is probably the most formal and most innovative collaboration to date. It's definitely a step in the right direction."