Customer Security Questionnaires and Why It’s Time to Automate Them
By Mitch Evans, Director of CISO Advisory, and Larry Kinkaid, Senior Consultant, CISO Advisory
With the increase in data breaches, businesses are more cautious than ever when it comes to sharing their data. Companies, like yours, have an obligation to not only protect that data, but also prove they have all the correct data security measures in place.
Enter the customer security questionnaire—a vendor risk assessment that helps determine how safe data is with your company and the controls you have in place to protect sensitive data and systems. Think of it like a job interview for a potential vendor. It’s a way to demonstrate your security posture and give your customers peace of mind when sharing their valuable data with you.
In the past, companies tackled these questionnaires one-by-one by using a software program or spreadsheet, gathering supporting documents, and sending it all on to the requestor. This manual process can be extremely time consuming, not to mention resource draining.
The good news is there’s a better, more efficient way for you to handle these questionnaires. That’s where BARR comes in. We’ll work with you to establish security questionnaire automation and arm you with ways to proactively publish security profiles.
This approach boasts a number of benefits because it:
- Saves time. Forget the old ways of answering each question one-by-one, reinventing the wheel each time.
- Shows a commitment to data protection. Taking the process from manual to automated positions your company as a safe partner that prioritizes security and customer data protection.
- Allows employees to focus on their job. Your security, engineering, sales, or whichever team you would have tasked with these questionnaires will now have that time back to do what they were hired to do.
- Potentially leads to shortened sales cycles and more revenue. That’s exactly what happened for Ceros when BARR helped them automate their questionnaire process. Check out our recent case study with Ceros for more details on this.
Our vCISO services, in tandem with a recommended automation tool, will work as part of your existing team to set you up for success on questionnaire requests moving forward.
Interested in partnering with BARR’s CISO advisory team to take the weight off your own employees? Contact us.