Driving compliance excellence: how Great Western Railway streamlined operations with CoreStream GRC
About Great Western Railway (GWR)
Great Western Railway, owned by FirstGroup, is a leading British train operator serving the Greater Western franchise area. With 197 managed stations and trains stopping at over 270 destinations.
- No. of employees: 6230
- No. of customers: 100 million+
Challenge
Navigating complex compliance requirements
Operating under a franchise agreement with over a thousand compliance obligations, Great Western Railway faced significant risks. Failure to meet these obligations could result in substantial fines and jeopardize eligibility for future franchise bids.
The complexity demanded a robust solution to ensure proactive management of activities and evidence collection—a centralized source of truth for all compliance requirements throughout the franchise lifecycle.
Solution
Tailored innovation with CoreStream GRC
To address GWR’s unique challenges, Great Western Railway turned to CoreStream GRC to deliver something better. Together, they developed Rail Franchise Management, a tailored solution that was designed to empower GWR to effectively manage its obligations and stay ahead of regulatory demands. Key features include:
- Enhanced visibility: all staff with compliance responsibilities can easily track actions, deadlines, and obligations. Empowering every staff member with compliance responsibilities to know exactly what’s required and when.
- Real-time insights: advanced reporting dashboards provide supervisors with instant visibility into the status of compliance activities.
- Streamlined communication: A dedicated correspondence hub simplifies communication with key regulators like the Department for Transport and the Office of Rail and Road.
CoreStream GRC’s flexible platform enabled GWR to customize the solution to meet their precise operational needs without requiring technical expertise, underscoring the platform’s adaptability and user-centric design.
Outcome
Smarter compliance, stronger results
By rethinking their approach with CoreStream GRC, GWR has transformed its compliance operations, achieving:
- Unburdened teams: Freed from tedious administrative work, GWR’s compliance team can now focus on high-value, strategic activities.
- Enhanced audit trails: Regulators benefit from a clear, comprehensive record of compliance activities, strengthening trust and accountability.
- Proactive issue resolution: Early identification of potential issues allows GWR to address them before they escalate, ensuring obligations are met with confidence.
- Efficiency gains: With fewer resources, the compliance team is delivering more than ever before.
Joe Graham, Business Assurance Director at GWR, highlights the impact:
“The CoreStream system provides us with an amazing single source of truth—not just for what needs to be done, but also for what’s been completed. By capturing everything in one place, we can see all obligations, manipulate them, and report on them. My mantra is: if in doubt, get it into CoreStream. You can never have too much information.”
CoreStream GRC is proud to partner with Great Western Railway in raising the bar for compliance management.
“At CoreStream GRC, we believe in empowering organizations to take complete control of their compliance challenges. Our platform is designed to adapt to each company’s unique needs, enabling them to build solutions tailored to their exact requirements and ways of working—even if their use case goes beyond the traditional GRC scope. GWR’s success showcases the power of flexibility and customization in achieving transformative results.” Paul Cadwallader, Senior Vice President, Client Solutions
About CoreStream GRC: the flexible, no-code solution for GRC success
CoreStream GRC is the intuitive, flexible GRC platform that delivers efficiency and value—your way. Driven by the belief that technology should be an enabler, not a barrier, we created CoreStream GRC to empower organizations to design their perfect GRC system with our expert team.
Using pre-built, customizable features, the platform is as intuitive and versatile as building with Lego bricks—offering limitless solutions. With seamless scalability, an intuitive interface, and rapid implementation, CoreStream GRC turns GRC from an administrative burden into a powerful business enabler.
Trusted by leading organizations like the BBC, Deloitte, NHS, PwC Middle East, and Shell Energy, CoreStream GRC consistently delivers measurable value for risk and compliance management needs.
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FAQ
Great Western Railway faced complex compliance requirements under its franchise agreement, with more than a thousand obligations to manage across multiple regulatory bodies. Manual tracking and fragmented systems created visibility gaps, administrative strain, and risk exposure. By adopting CoreStream GRC, GWR replaced scattered processes with one centralized platform, providing a single source of truth for all obligations, deadlines, and evidence.
CoreStream GRC helped GWR transform compliance management by introducing real-time dashboards, automated workflows, and a clear audit trail. These capabilities gave teams instant visibility into compliance status, streamlined communication with regulators, and significantly reduced manual effort. With CoreStream GRC, GWR’s compliance team can now focus on strategic, high-value activities rather than administrative tasks.
Since implementing CoreStream GRC, Great Western Railway has seen major improvements in compliance visibility, reporting speed, and operational control. Teams reclaimed hours each week, audits became faster and easier, and regulators gained confidence through transparent, well-documented processes. The platform’s automation and real-time insights also enabled proactive issue resolution before risks escalated.
CoreStream GRC strengthened GWR’s engagement with key regulators like the Department for Transport and the Office of Rail and Road. Its correspondence hub and centralized tracking made it easier to communicate updates, share documentation, and demonstrate compliance readiness. By simplifying oversight, CoreStream GRC helped GWR build stronger accountability and trust across its governance network.
Organizations choose CoreStream GRC because it combines enterprise power with true flexibility. The platform’s intuitive, no-code design allows clients to implement fast, adapt easily, and scale seamlessly, all while reducing compliance complexity. For GWR and other leading enterprises, CoreStream GRC is not just a tool but a trusted partner in delivering transparency, resilience, and operational excellence.