THE VALUE OF TECHNOLOGY IN MANAGING THIRD-PARTY RISK
Our research shows that third-party risk is at the top of the agenda for compliance professionals in 2018. This is hardly surprising when you consider that businesses are increasingly reliant on networks of third parties to take their services and products to market, and businesses are held accountable for how their third parties conduct themselves.
Evidence shows that these third parties pose a significant risk to companies trying to do business legally and ethically. There is scarcely an example of a corporate corruption case that does not involve a third party. Businesses have found themselves on the front pages of newspapers for human rights abuses perpetrated by third parties in their supply chain, and they will soon have new responsibilities for those third parties securing the personal data of their employees and customers under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
These risks are not lost on businesses. Most have compliance programmes in place which set out what information they need to gather and what work needs to be done to limit the threat. The challenge for compliance teams is how best to manage their third-party relationships.
Many compliance professionals are turning to technology for help. Half of the respondents (52 percent) to this year’s Compliance Horizon survey told us they believed more effective use of technology would make the biggest difference to their ability to protect the business, while 59 percent expect to use compliance technology more in 2018. One compliance director went as far as to say that “it is almost impossible to manage a programme without technology” these days.
Apr-Jun 2018 Issue
The Risk Advisory Group Ltd