Agiliance-On-Demand for Vendor/Partner Assessment

Agiliance On-Demand delivers a powerful agent-less web-based application to automate the IT risk and compliance management process for external vendor, partner and service provider organizations. Agiliance On-Demand solutions are delivered in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS) and provide rapid time to compliance while eliminating up front cost of ownership issues. Flexible billing scenarios allow for compliance costs to be shared or allocated as agreed to among partners.

Challenges

• Multiple regulations require repeated surveys –  SOX, PCI, SAS70 audits each can require vendor assessments
• Manual processes don’t scale – to hundreds or thousands of assessments as is often required; email, spreadsheets and Word documents have specific limitations
• Tracking responses from external organizations and mapping them to industry standards, regulations and frameworks is a huge task, as is monitoring their status against updated policies

The Solution

Agiliance On-Demand eliminates cost barriers to deploying a robust risk assessment solution and delivers a platform that can scale as partners are added to a business ecosystem. The Vendor/Partner Solution from Agiliance leverages the strong risk and compliance workflow capability leveraging policies in the built-in Common Control Framework with 10,000+ controls covering standards, regulations and frameworks like ISO 17799, NIST 800-53, GLBA, SOX, HIPAA, PCI, SAS 70 and many others.

The self-assessment process combined with e-Survey capability replaces email and spreadsheets as a way to collect and classify information from vendors and partners. Vendor/partner management is a key dimension of IT GRC, and the Agiliance Vendor/Partner Assessment Solution integrates vendor assessment results in overall IT risk and compliance scores.

Features

• Web-based access and a central collection database for efficient entry of information and centralized analysis and correlation
• Each vendor or partner is designated and tracked as an asset or entity in the system with associated compliance levels
• Workflow monitoring includes survey distribution to asset owners, progress tracking, reminders and management escalation when required
• Consistent automated classification, and risk and compliance scoring of vendor responses
• Context-specific questionnaire guidance and reference links
• Each partner or vendor is set up as an asset entity in the Agiliance Solution. Individual compliance and risk scores are tracked and displayed visually.
• Attachment of evidence reducing the need for on-site inspections
• Integration of data from automated testing of technical controls, if available
• Tracking and timely completion of remediation steps, if required

Benefits

• Significantly increase throughput of vendor assessments
• Make partnerships productive faster – the speed and efficiency of assessments and approvals results in more confidence in business relationships
• Organizations can now implement a fast repeatable process to assess and manage vendors
• Assessments can scale to thousands of vendors and partners
• Certification costs are reduced by enabling web-based self certification
• Need-based access to results – compliance managers, risk managers, business owners, etc. as well as vendors themselves receive the information they need to do their job
• A holistic view of the organization's risk and compliance status that integrates external vendor measurements with internal measurements.