Third-party risk management (TPRM) and vendor oversight have always been a vital necessity for companies. But conducting vendor evaluations is a time-consuming, expensive process, especially for organizations subject to stringent regulations and limited resources. Now, with the COVID-19 outbreak, they’re more critical than ever, yet they’re even more challenging. COVID-19 is forcing companies to quickly alter the way they find and vet vendors at a time when social distancing is the law of the land.

COVID-19 is no doubt the most significant health risk the world has seen in modern times. Not only are billions of people at risk, it’s also bringing a massive number of companies to a standstill or at least dramatically curtailing their ability to conduct business. The first priority for companies has been to protect the health of employees and customers. The second has been determining how they can continue to deliver services and products to customers during these challenging times.

Redefining the method of evaluating vendor partners

The current outbreak has redefined the methods in which vendor managers, procurement specialists and risk managers evaluate supply chains and how preferred vendor partners provide goods or services. Many companies, not just new vendors, are also reassessing existing networks. In the past, most companies didn’t have staff in place to manage these tasks. It isn’t getting any better now that companies are downsizing because of the expected impact of COVID-19 on sales and the economy.

Companies have always focused on vetting vendors for performance and security, but these days they have health concerns to consider as well.

Companies have always focused on vetting vendors for performance and security, but these days they have health concerns to consider as well. It is a whole new level of TPRM. While business continuity planning isn’t a new discipline to TPRM, with the current crisis, the scope of what to look for has expanded to include pandemic response initiatives. This is especially true for vendors that directly interact with customers, borrowers and other third parties.

Managing third-party risk requires expertise and technology

Security also becomes an even bigger issue with a dramatic increase in companies conducting businesses online as operations and workforces go remote worldwide. This creates a more significant risk as digital information sharing grows exponentially. Therefore, verifying the security level of all applications vendors use continues to be a major part of mitigating vendor risk. That alone involves an even deeper dive into third-party operations.

Managing third-party risk obligations effectively requires both expertise and technology. While larger companies may have the resources in-house to fulfill security, health and all other necessary risk assessments, most mid-size to smaller organizations don’t. So, how do they maintain service stability and vendor trust? With staff stretched thin, several companies are now looking to outsource vendor oversight responsibilities to third-party service providers.

Increasing efficiency by outsourcing vendor oversight

One of those third-party service providers is Altisource^®, the leading real estate and mortgage solutions provider. The company offers the Vendorly^® Third-Party Risk Management SaaS platform to help assess, vet and qualify vendor partners. Vendorly’s scalable and agile technology streamlines vendor research, hiring, due diligence, document maintenance and oversight all in one place. Its integrated features sync together to help provide the full picture companies need to fulfill oversight standards.

With a database of over 60,000 vetted providers, Vendorly can help locate the ideal vendor partners companies need.

With a database of over 60,000 vetted providers, Vendorly can help locate the ideal vendor partners companies need. They can also help manage the reassessment of existing vendor networks as well as maintain oversight throughout the overall lifecycle of vendor risk management. Plus, with Vendorly taking over part of the vendor oversight responsibilities, companies have more time to focus their staff on other important areas of business and operations.

Evaluating vendors is more critical than ever these days

According to Steve Greenfield, Vendorly’s Director of Operations, “These days, health and safety are even more important than service performance, so evaluating vendors becomes more critical than ever and we are here to help. Our agile vetting and management methodology is customizable for each company’s specific needs. Whether you provide services that require face-to-face interactions or even if social distancing isn’t an issue, we help find the right vendors and provide full support at every step.”

Greenfield points out that while Vendorly can help streamline the vetting process and share due diligence by implementing controls that protect companies, the platform is designed to manage the entire third-party risk management process. It is still the ultimate responsibility of every organization to conduct a full third-party risk analysis, including making sure vendors follow the same due diligence, risk assessment and health safety guidelines.

Vendor management in the new normal

While many businesses proved to be agile and transitioned staffing to work from home environments, this opened up other areas of risk around information security, secure home networks and the necessity for VPN (virtual private networks). To this end, vendor management practitioners need to look closer at the new normal and apply common oversight best practices while taking into consideration that, for the immediate future, vendor risk may have moved from the corporate office to the kitchen table.

To find out more about how the Vendorly oversight platform can help during the pandemic, visit Vendorly.com.