The digital age has ushered in increasing pressure for companies of all sizes and industries to pay closer attention to their third-party risk management (TPRM) programs. As an extension of your enterprise operations, vendors and third-party service providers present greater liabilities when it comes to data and privacy.
Enterprise risk management (ERM) carries perhaps the largest burden, with a significant amount of work today handled by third-party vendors. Companies must guard against potentially exposing sensitive information to their vendors. Third-party risk management processes and tools are becoming essential for doing this, mitigating the legal, reputational, financial and cybersecurity dangers that come with using vendors.
Manual processes won’t cut it anymore when it comes to the complex and multi-layered beast that third-party risk management is today. Unifying enterprise risk management initiatives means bringing together people, processes and technology. When leveraged correctly, these combined resources can streamline processes and automate common third-party risk management activities.
People and processes
Aligning third-party risk management processes and people leaves more time for developing the strategic aspects of your privacy, security and enterprise risk management programs.
The first place to start is ensuring you and your third parties are in compliance with hundreds of global laws and regulations, specifically privacy laws. The most important of these standards across industries include:
- California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA)
- EU GDPR
- Brazil LGPD
- Thailand PDPA
- Nevada Privacy Law
- ISO 27701
- PCI DSS
Compliance with these laws and frameworks is often a burden for enterprise risk management teams. Ever-changing technologies, vendors, and moving parts make manual processes and spreadsheet-centered tracking a wasted investment of your team’s time, expertise, and energy.
Savvy companies know that in order to succeed today, they must create processes that integrate the strengths of the people on their teams with the technology that can help automate third-party risk management tasks. When people and processes are unified, enterprise risk management forms a barrier of privacy and cybersecurity protection around a company, its customers, and its third-party vendors.
The role of third-party risk management technology
Automation should play a central role in the comprehensive and consistent security of your company. Third-party risk management technology delivers automated relationship management to reduce manual errors and save man-hours of work.
An enterprise risk management solution allows machines to do as many tasks as possible so your people can focus on the tasks only humans can do.
A third-party risk management solution gives enterprise organizations the power to streamline supplier selection, assess third-party risks and performance, and identify bottlenecks and gaps in the supply chain. Not only does your team communicate more effectively internally, but you have better collaboration with your vendors, too.
With proven third-party risk management software, a company can address every stage of the vendor lifecycle:
- Complete supplier questionnaires faster.
- Gain more value from vendor data.
- Identify contractual gaps to hold every supplier accountable.
- Monitor suppliers’ security, privacy, and compliance.
- Receive alerts when vendors experience a breach.
With these advantages, companies don’t have to spin plates anymore when it comes to third-party risk management. Everything is systematized, standardized, and simplified into one solution that all team members can access.
Get started with enterprise risk management
Unifying risk management initiatives requires the assessment and integration of three areas: people, processes, and technology. When these three areas work in tandem to complement each other, enterprise companies can experience air-tight third-party risk management success.
Third-party risk management gives your team the tools it needs to succeed without sacrificing security. This eliminates future disruptions in the supply change relating to unreliable vendors or compliance-related concerns.
OneTrust Vendorpedia third-party risk management software has the intelligence and automation to scale your program, all while reducing risks and facilitating productivity. You can start a free trial today to see it in action. Or request a demo to have one of our experts give you a personalized tour.
