Establishing Governance and Ownership

Clear governance structures form the foundation of successful enterprise SCA programs. Establish a Software Composition Analysis Center of Excellence (CoE) bringing together representatives from security, development, legal, and operations teams. This cross-functional group defines policies, selects tools, and guides implementation across the organization. The CoE prevents siloed approaches while ensuring diverse perspectives shape the program.

Define explicit ownership for different aspects of the SCA program. Security teams typically own vulnerability management and tool administration. Legal departments handle license policy definition and compliance verification. Development teams own remediation implementation and day-to-day tool usage. Operations manages infrastructure and integration. Clear ownership prevents gaps where responsibilities fall between teams while avoiding duplicate efforts.

Create escalation paths for handling critical issues and policy exceptions. When developers encounter blocking vulnerabilities with no available fixes, clear escalation processes prevent deadlock. Executive sponsors make final decisions on risk acceptance for business-critical applications. Time-bound exception processes balance security with business needs. Document all exceptions with business justification, risk mitigation, and review dates. This governance framework enables consistent decision-making at scale.