Los Angeles, July 10, 2023 – Protecht today announced the launch of its enhanced Vendor Risk Management module to enable businesses to mitigate risks with third-party vendors. Protecht is a leader in Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) software and services globally.
With the growing reliance on third-party vendors and increasingly complex relationships driven by digital transformation, businesses need to guard themselves against risks posed by these relationships. System outages, data breaches of personal information and cyber fraud are now common events arising from third-party relationships. Boards, regulators and customers now have greater expectations for the management of these third-party risks.
Despite this stakeholder pressure on businesses to apply better risk management oversight to their supply chain risks, many organizations are either unaware of vendor risks or do not have adequate resources allocated to support a robust approach to managing the full lifecycle of the vendor relationship – onboarding, continual monitoring of active vendors and finally the offboarding process.
Protecht’s Vendor Risk Management module addresses these by delivering a single source of truth for end-to-end visibility of vendors. The solution enables vendor managers to risk rank vendors and prioritize their workload, monitor third parties on an ongoing basis, beyond when they are onboarded, and integrate vendor risk management with the broader organization's objectives, performance, and risk profile. Vendors can respond to governance and security questionnaires in an easy-to-use dedicated vendor portal.
Protecht’s Vendor Risk Management solution seamlessly integrates with Protecht ERM and includes:
- A centralized workspace for vendor managers to manage data, identify weaknesses, and prioritize and manage risk remediation.
- A simple, secure portal for vendors to provide information, improving third-party collaboration through real-time communication, and data collection.
- A user-friendly interface and analytics dashboard to easily access, analyse and report on all vendors throughout the relationship lifecycle.
- Customizable and industry-standard automated vendor security and regulatory questionnaires
- Workflow alerts and reminders to optimize productivity.
“Our mission at Protecht is to help businesses proactively manage and mitigate all components of an enterprise risk framework – be it operational risk, IT risk and resilience, or in this case vendor risk. We know that organizations are wary of the risks posed by external vendors, but they might not have the right tools to support an effective vendor risk management program. We are here to change that and empower organizations around the world to build more insightful relationships with their vendors and suppliers based on trust and security,” says David Bergmark, Chief Executive Officer, Protecht.
Effective vendor risk management is an integral part of an organization's resilience, helping to avoid supply chain disruption and recover faster should an event occur. Ultimately it will protect organizations from financial loss, reputational damage, and legal liabilities associated with their vendors. Just as importantly it also helps build stronger relationships with external vendors through increased visibility and transparency.
“Our comprehensive vendor risk management module is now available, and we aim to make it the first choice for leading businesses,” says David.
California was the first state to require supply chain due diligence so companies would monitor vendors for modern slavery violations. This Spring, the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) united in announcing standardized interagency final guidance requiring a risk-based approach to third-party relationships.
“Increased regulatory focus, the frequency of cyber attacks and the supply chain problems made evident by the pandemic are driving organizations to pay more attention to third-party vendors and the risk in critical business relationships. Protecht ERM enables organizations to identify, mitigate and report on third-party risk with a proven risk-based approach based on ISO 31000,” said Protecht’s VP North America, Terence Lee.
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About Protecht
With offices in Los Angeles, Sydney and London, Protecht provides complete risk solutions, including the world-class Protecht ERM enterprise risk management platform as well as training and advisory services to businesses, government organizations and regulators across the world.
Protecht is passionate about solving the challenges customers face in managing risks. Protecht ERM provides a single, interconnected platform that produces a holistic view of risk while being simple and easy to use. Protecht has helped hundreds of organizations move away from spreadsheets and email to a more efficient and effective way to manage risk.
