As cybersecurity concerns and global supply chains have grown, vendor management has become a vital element of every organization’s cybersecurity program. This video delves into why vendor management is important for all businesses, especially when it comes to meeting compliance and regulatory requirements.
What Is the Importance of Vendor Management?
Vendor management has been a very important piece for regulated companies like banks, large healthcare, and publicly traded companies that are regulated by Sarbanes-Oxley. But today, with global enemy cybersecurity attacks, including on vendors who touch thousands of companies, vendor management should be a critical piece of any cybersecurity program at any organization.
What Is Vendor Management?
In a nutshell, vendor management is doing due diligence on all your vendors – especially your critical vendors. This due diligence assesses whether vendors have the proper security measures and processes in place to protect your data and be reliable for operations.
What’s a Critical Vendor?
A critical vendor is any vendor that touches your network, touches your important data, houses your important data, or without whom you cannot operate. In other words, if they cease to exist today, you cease to operate today. That’s a pretty easy way to look at it.
How Often Do I Follow Up with My Critical Vendors?
Vendor management is your methodology of following up with them on a consistent basis, at least annually, to ensure that they’re doing things the way you want them to do them; they’re doing things the way your regulators or your auditors would expect you to do them because they’re a critical extension of your business.
Need Help Running Your Vendor Management Program?
Now that you know more about vendor management and why it’s important, you may think you’re facing an overwhelming task! If your in-house team lacks the time or expertise to run a vendor management program, consider outsourcing it to our expert team. You can start by contacting us for a confidential chat about your needs.