Optimize the Cyber Third-Party Risk Management Questionnaire Process

Managing supplier relationships and assessing their risk levels has become both an indispensable and complex task for modern companies. Questionnaires have long been considered an optimal solution for keeping up with a vendor’s cyber risk posture, though we know that any good assessment strategy must be complemented with continuous monitoring and remediation. Even with assessments themselves, however, many organizations struggle with efficiently handling third-party questionnaire management. To address this, BlueVoyant has launched a new service offering - the Supply Chain Defense Questionnaire Managed Service.

This solution, delivered by BlueVoyant specialists, streamlines the entire process of supplier risk management, from onboarding client questionnaires to soliciting and evaluating vendor responses, and simplifies complex tasks to ensure thorough risk assessment.

Specialists work with customers to create a holistic assessment program from the top. They can manage questionnaires using either standard or proprietary templates, or by creating them from scratch. These can be sent to multiple suppliers, ensuring a broad and thorough assessment of risk across all third-party relationships. The BlueVoyant service provides a robust tracking system for assessment progress, collection, and review of supplier responses, and even allows for comparison of these responses with previous ones.

BlueVoyant analysts take responsibility for communicating with vendors, identifying issues based on responses, providing risk severity information, and collaborating on issue resolution. This not only enhances the accuracy of vendor risk evaluation but also significantly streamlines the questionnaire management process, freeing up valuable time and resources for the client.

The benefits of this service are manifold. It provides a detailed assessment of suppliers' environments and validates their reported practices. It enables companies to understand the difference between the intended and actual state of a third party’s cyber risk posture. Furthermore, it gives a real-time view of cyber risk findings and assessment scores for multiple risk domains, improving the understanding of risk sources from supplier data.

BlueVoyant’s service offers continuous visibility into trends, risk ratings, and the status of third-party relationships. It comes with a self-service report and dashboard builder for internal sharing of reports, which includes custom analytic and insight dashboards. This allows for better internal communication and more informed decision-making.

Additionally, the service uses a rules engine to create custom workflows for scheduling follow-up and routing different sections of questionnaires to internal specialists. This leads to improved efficiency in the follow-up and review process.

In summary, BlueVoyant's Questionnaire Managed Service is a game-changer for businesses seeking to optimize their supplier risk management process. By providing a comprehensive, efficient solution for third-party questionnaire management and cyber defense, it ensures that modern companies can maintain robust, secure supply chains in an increasingly interconnected world