Operational Risks With Third Party Vendors

If you can’t operate or operations become difficult, you lose time and money. Nothing new there -- Business 101.

But with that in mind, consider the impact of the following scenarios on your company if the third-party SaaS or Cloud provider you have entrusted all or parts of your business to experiences operational issues:

• Poor Internet service on the provider’s end or your own will hamper your SaaS application’s performance due to outages or lag.

• A power outage at the provider's building could bring your systems down with it.
• Equipment issues at your provider could knock your service or software out.

• Perhaps your employees don’t find the new software as easy to use as the salesperson made it look in the demo. A longer learning curve than expected, an interface they don’t find intuitive, or frequent glitches can frustrate them, increase stress, reduce productivity, and send them out the door in the midst of a labor shortage.
  
• What if you need to move to another CSP due to a natural disaster or a fire at your provider's location? Not only could you be down for days or weeks while migrating to a new provider, you might find that you lose some of your data due to compatibility and conversion issues from the old to the new vendor.
  

These are just a handful of potential operational issues at your SaaS or Cloud vendor that could affect your business, so during your Vendor Risk Assessments, be sure to account for how you will continue to operate in the event of trouble at your third-party provider.

For more information about performing a VRA on Cloud and SaaS vendors, grab your FREE copy of our e-Book, "Find Your Cloud 9's", which offers a mini-guide to the VRA process. 

To set up a Reference Interview on the questions you have about investing in new technology for your business, contact me at 302-537-4198, ericm@edminfopro.com or on our Contact form.