Top 5 Reasons to Be Thankful for Third-Party Risk Management

Third-party risk management is a comprehensive concept and can be very demanding at times. We fully understand that there are challenges presented to you on a daily basis that keep you and your team on your toes - and with the holidays approaching, your schedule is probably becoming even more hectic.

We thought now would be a great time to take a brief moment to reflect and provide a friendly reminder as to some reasons to be thankful for your third party risk management program. After all, ‘tis the season to be grateful.

The 5 Reasons to Be Thankful for Third-Party Risk Management

1. By having an established policy, program and procedures in place, you’ve created a well-developed program that will keep your examiners happy – and we all like satisfied examiners!
2. When you complete due diligence on vendors as part of your third party risk management process you have the opportunity to fix any risky findings before things go south. If you think about it, you’re the superhero for your organization and to your customers by protecting both from potential risks. In the process, you’re preventing enforcement actions and reputation issues too.
3. If you have a good contract management system in place to track important dates, you’re likely saving your organization money and providing a ROI by no longer missing any contract expirations or auto-renewal notice periods.
4. A huge part of your program and daily responsibility is likely completing vendor risk assessments. By having a thorough risk assessment process and completing assessments on your vendors, you’re staying ahead and identifying, as well as addressing, risks posed to the organization that would possibly go unnoticed or be missed otherwise.
5. With a well-developed third party risk management program in place, you’re establishing standards and expectations with your vendors which should lead to an overall positive and successful working relationship. 

There are likely even more that your organization could add to this list. We hope you have the opportunity to take some time to reflect on reasons to be thankful for your third party risk management program this holiday season.

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