Photo courtesy of memegenerator.net
When buying a car, do you rush right out to the dealership and purchase the first car you find online? Or, do you perform your research and kick the tires, taking it for a test drive? Most of us will conduct our “due diligence” before buying a car and this includes researching the types of cars we’d like to buy, taking several test drives and checking out the mechanics of the car. This same due diligence should be done for each of the vendors that you plan to use within your company in the form of a vendor risk assessment, regardless of their size. In fact, current vendors within your company should be reviewed every one to two years. For example, did someone review their financials? Do you know if you can get your data back if they go bankrupt? Do you know if they’re governed by laws outside of your country?
In larger companies, vendor risk assessments are typically performed by risk analysts, technology auditors, and information security folks, working in conjunction with the vendor management and procurement departments. In smaller companies, there may be a one or two person team responsible for conducting the vendor risk assessment. In many startup organizations, vendor risk assessments can be an afterthought. If you don’t perform a vendor risk assessment on your vendors today, take a look at this Risk Assessment Toolkit from the State of California’s Department of Technology, Information Security Office to get you started. There are many other sample templates and resources available online, as well. This is a great video on assessing technology vendor risk and security from Monte Ratzlaff, Security Manager, at UC Davis Health System, as he presents “Vendor Risks: Evaluating the Security of New Technology”.
At this point, some of you may think, “well, I don’t need a risk assessment on ____ vendor (insert name of vendor), they’re huge!”. Right? Wrong. I’ve worked with technology audit professionals on the review of hundreds (if not thousands) of technology vendors and yes, some of those “huge” vendors can have red flags for you and your company. Whether it’s the fact that they’re in the middle of a merger, they’re outsourcing their development team, or they don’t have enough insurance to cover you in the event of a breach, the scenarios can vary, depending upon what your company considers a risk and how that risk is categorized. If you need a tool to understand risks associated with the project you’re considering, take a look at this post by BrightHub PM, it has a lot of great info on creating a risk matrix and how to use it.
In the end, just think of a vendor risk assessment as a way to kick the tires of the prospective vendor before buying a lemon whose carburetor is going to explode once you drive it off the lot. If you’re interested in performing a proof of concept or proof of technology with the vendor once they pass the vendor risk assessment, check out a former post that I wrote on this topic and good luck!
