Businesses staying fresh and innovative take risks when adding new technology solutions. While adopting third- and fourth-party vendor technologies provides strategic business advantages and fosters a competitive edge, it can also open the business up to new risks and vulnerabilities.

A magnitude of sensitive data is collected daily in the digitized economy. While this abundance of rich data is helping businesses deliver more value to their customers, this very data is what has cybercriminals delightedly rubbing their hands together in front of their computer screens.

Numbers of cyberattacks and data breaches suffered by organizations of varying sizes and industries continue to increase. Attacks can harm the owners of the data involved, in addition to profoundly impacting businesses, and cause reputational, financial, and legal damage.

The Equifax data breach is an example of the deep, global impact such cases can have on a company. The attack affected 143 million customers from every corner of the globe, and according to CNBC, it “may cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars and hurt its reputation for years to come.”

Yet, despite growing numbers of cyber attacks and the impact on all those involved, a worrying number of businesses don’t have the knowledge or resources to help mitigate risk. According to PwC’s 2017 Global State of Information Security Survey, while breaches are more common, many organizations struggle to even comprehend and manage cyber risk. The annual survey noted 44 percent of respondents do not have an information security strategy, with 39 percent expecting “loss or compromise of sensitive data” as a consequence of cyberattack.

But with regulatory requirements such as PCI DSS and GDPR, businesses have to boost their efforts to ensure both them and third-party vendors are compliant. If a data breach occurs because of vendor negligence, customers will typically point the blame at you – not your vendor. So, assessing the risk posture of vendors through vendor risk management (VRM) is critical.

What is Vendor Risk Management?

Common elements include:

• Assessing risk and prioritizing response based on how critical the vendor is to your business
• The management of contracts for all vendors
• Rating vendors on cybersecurity grounds, and
• Transparency to customers, insurers, investors, regulators, and legal bodies on risk.

A robust VRM process allows you to gather the information about prospective vendors, needed to pinpoint any problem and implement a solution. Furthermore, having an effective VRM will provide value to efore risk events even occur. All parties’ increased risk awareness means a solid VRM instills trust, before investing or transacting with your business.

Those businesses which are proactive in their approach to VRM should also find these benefits will translate into a more stable and profitable market presence, in addition to experiencing improved customer trust.

Leveraging the power of automation

VRM solutions automate the error-prone process of assessing vendors manually. SAI Global, a leading industry standards and compliance company, offers an integrated risk management solution that combines world-class technology, services, and advisory capabilities across the entire business lifecycle.

The knowledge provided in one unifying platform enables customers to develop a holistic, integrated view of risk.

By leveraging SAI Global’s Digital Risk software, your business can automate vital aspects of third-party risk management. And in today’s highly-regulated business environment, automation is crucial to effectively manage the digital risk ecosystem.

SAI Global’s VRM solutions offer a range of benefits to organizations. These include the ability to:

• Classify accurately third-party vendor assessment requirements
• Prioritize remediation of high priority risks
• Automate data collection to generate executive-level reports necessary for key risk-taking decisions
• Automate risk assessments of vendors and validate third-party vendor risk scores, and
• Ensure compliance with regulations such as PCI DSS and GDPR.

Automate VRM and keep your company’s reputation protected

SAI Global’s solution provides ultimate protection for your business by automating due diligence, on-boarding, mapping requirements from the Standard Information Gathering Agreement (SIG), and complete vendor lifecycle management. The Digital Risk solution achieved five stars in an SC Media comprehensive product review for five consecutive years; recognition of the solution’s powerful risk management capabilities.

Protect yourself by managing thousands

As previously mentioned, even some of the biggest companies fall victim to vendor negligence. But companies are faced with challenges vetting third-party vendors. How can you be sure that your vendors are standards-compliant?

From a single platform, the Digital Risk solution allows you to manage thousands of vendors, view the overall risk ranking against SIG, and continuously monitor changing situations.

This solution ensures you don’t become a victim of a data breach or compliance violation because of an irresponsible vendor, saving you time, money, and other precious business resources.

A pre-emptive approach to VRM

With an effective VRM automation solution, you can prepare for audits and investigations. SAI Global’s solution enables access to a comprehensive knowledge base of legal and standard frameworks, including over 400 pre-built surveys with built-in logic.

These bundled resources enable businesses to correlate information and analyze risk data by department and vendor type. The system’s Reporting Wizard transforms assessment results into clear and insightful reports.

SAI Global also leverages partnerships with companies known for their strategic expertise and excellent service in risk management.

These include Thomson Reuters, whose World-Check is a risk intelligence solution enabling regulatory compliance, and SecurityScorecard, a provider of security ratings and continuous risk monitoring for vendor and third-party risk management purposes.

All companies need vendors to support their business, but managing and monitoring them is challenging. With advanced automated vendor management software such as , your organization will gain access to rich insights that can increase efficiency, mitigate risk, and maximize vendor performance.

To get in touch with a representative to talk through your options, click here. Alternatively, download the Equifax cybersecurity breach whitepaper here or find out more information about SAI global on their website.