Preemptive strike on your vendor risk - A case for tech enabled vendor risk management.

Nearly all organizations work with vendors or third-party service providers. Reliance on third party providers is an essential component of the ability of a modern organization to deliver value and achieve strategic goals. In this tangled network of relationships, it has become increasingly complex to understand your vendor landscape. These partnerships introduce risks that companies might not even be aware of — especially when the responsibility for managing those risks lies outside of your organization.

A well defined controls framework within your organization does not necessarily translate to a reduced risk within your vendors’ environment. Lack of visibility and absence of authority over the vendors’ internal risk strategy only adds to this problem.

In today’s volatile business environment, breaches, exposure risk, and regulatory non-compliance can lead to devastating financial, reputation, cyber security, or legal outcomes. While your company might not be responsible for creating these gaps, you will be held accountable for not doing the due diligence required to ensure that vendors are safeguarding your business interests and client data.

What is the most effective way to get a handle on such a complex, unpredictable risk vector, while simultaneously ensuring scalability and proactive compliance?

The answer lies in technology enabled vendor risk management. Your vendor risk management solution should support the following key areas:

An effective vendor risk management solution will enable your organization to evaluate vendor risk based on different criteria such as access to critical information, policy requirements, and prospective operational impacts (business continuity, reputation, revenue, regulatory).

At ProcessBolt, we have created a technology enabled vendor risk management solution that goes beyond ad-hoc spreadsheets and shared drives. Instead of vendor risk management being an afterthought or a small slice of a larger, unmanageable multipurpose system, we have taken a purposeful approach to create a solution that is easy to use and even easier to implement. Our goal is to help you optimize your vendor management process as quickly as possible. Our scalable compliance survey and scoring engine allows you to measure and remediate risk across your entire supply chain. Our growing template library enables you to rapidly implement a controls framework at scale.

We have partnered with a leading vendor management consulting services firm — Quintillion Consulting — to help your organization implement and maintain a world class vendor management program. With service offerings ranging from a fully managed service to vendor management program development, our teams can help you build a world class vendor management program that fits your organization’s risk tolerance and strategic goals.

These services, complemented by our leading edge ProcessBolt technology solution, provides you with the capability to do a preemptive strike on your vendor risk. It offers 360 degree visibility into your vendor risk landscape along with the ability to manage it effectively.

For more information, contact us at www.processbolt.com/contact or contact Quintillion Consulting at http://www.quintillionconsulting.com/contact.