Throughout my career as a solutions consultant for various risk and compliance technology companies, the toughest and most challenging aspect of my role(s) has been configuring solutions to align with prospects’ needs. What makes TPRM configuration tough is that for most “builds,” I’ve had to rely on various product teams to assist with configuration requests as well as administrators that hold security permissions to grant me specific configuration access needed for my builds. This can cause delays and complicate efforts to deliver timely proof of concepts to my prospects and clients.
The ability for third-party risk management (TPRM) professionals to configure and manage technology independently is an asset and should be a high consideration when evaluating the technology that supports your TPRM program.
We live in a world where regulations are increasing, and brand protection is more complex than ever. Reliance on other people and teams can slow down productivity, efficiency, and goals. The purpose of this blog is to dive into ‘why’ your TPRM software should give maximum configurability to the practitioners managing the program.
In January 2024, Canada launched new anti-forced labour legislation, the Forced and Child Labour in Supply Chain Act, which requires due diligence reporting by May 2024. The new legislation adds to a growing trend of increased regulations for labour rights.
Most mature, enterprise-level TPRM programs have an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) component with varying degrees of labour rights-focused assessments. However, for organizations that are headquartered or function in Canada, the new Forced and Child Labour in Supply Chain Act is a new regulation that requires TPRM practitioners to consider new assessment questions, processes, assignees, reports, dashboards, and audit cadences as part of their current TPRM program.
The last thing anyone wants to do is wait on IT teams or administrators that oversee your organization’s technologies to digitize all your updates. Practitioners that can build out their updates independently are likely to see more productivity and efficiencies due to the reduced lag time in implementing programmatic changes.
As I reflect on the risk and compliance landscape and consider our legislative future, labour rights are just one of many expanding domains that require TPRM programs to evolve with the times.
For example, responsible artificial intelligence (AI) is the hottest topic in the market right now and organizations have to understand the risks and consequences associated with engagements with third parties that use AI in their products and services.
Another example is the varying data privacy laws by jurisdiction and the need to condition TPRM programs to recognize what actions and questions should be presented to third-party contacts based on the region, country, or state/province provided. In short, compliance is increasing in complexity and staying compliant requires quicker technology alignment.
Many times, the updates to a TPRM program are not as drastic as incorporating a whole new set of questions to comply with a new regulation (like Canada’s anti-forced labour legislation) but to correct a misspelled word on a third-party nomination questionnaire. Relying on technical teams for every minor configuration can get expensive because these teams must be capable of managing all of the tickets and solutions used by an organization.
First impressions are important and TPRM programs should be capable of addressing minor configuration issues like misspellings and grammatical mistakes quickly to avoid unwanted thoughts about the program’s professionalism and ownership. Simply put, practitioners in charge of their TPRM program should have the ability to manage the program’s content without needing to engage with internal teams acting as traffic cops to the organization’s contracted technologies.
Technical limitations can sometimes negatively alter the progress of an organization’s digitally transformed program into old habits like using manual spreadsheets as their single source of truth and paper notebooks to log activities. As a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) consultant, one of my biggest fears, prior to working at Aravo, was the technical helplessness clients experienced while attempting to make simple updates to their software.
Overall, self-sufficiency in configuring your TPRM technology can lead to significant cost savings that can be reinvested in other areas of the program when TPRM professionals are empowered to take control of the configuration.
As TPRM professionals, we should always be students of the business and always look for more effective ways to tell our organization’s risk and compliance journey.
An additional advantage to being fully self-sufficient with the configuration of your TPRM software is that you will be at the forefront of innovation and creativity in your program. For example, if Canada’s new anti-forced labour legislation applies to your organization and you’ve hired a dedicated person or team to manage that area of the program, there is nothing holding you back from learning how to create a specific role equipped with all-new reports and visualizations (i.e. charts, graphs, tables, etc.) to enable success (i.e. considering the technology you use has role/permission-based options like Aravo).
The agility and adaptability of your program are directly linked to the control you have on the configuration layer of your program. The only caveat is that the TPRM professionals managing the program must be committed to continuously learning how to take advantage of their TPRM technology.
Technology is a critical driver in the success of modern TPRM programs. When practitioners can independently manage and self-sufficiently control the narrative of the program, significant advantages follow.
Aravo’s extremely user-friendly and flexible graphical configuration capabilities offer the foundational landscape to be more productive, more efficient, save money and time, as well as empower people to be innovative. Aravo’s ‘drag-and-drop,’ no code, only clicks configuration layer is purpose-built to enable the most non-technical TPRM professionals with the functionality to independently design programs that comply, and protect the organization’s people and brand.
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