Gartner released the top eight security and risk trends to watch in a recent report. One of these trends, vendor consolidation, is significant to SaaS organizations who, in the recent years of cloud-based data sharing and vendor growth, may be looking at tens or even dozens of vendors—each with its own data connection.

Why is vendor consolidation necessary?

The Gartner report cites a recent survey that found that 78% of CISOs have 16 or more vendors with cybersecurity connections, while 12% have 46 or more vendors. Instead of looking internally to streamline operations, organizations often turn to outside vendors for help, which means these numbers keep climbing. Over the last few years, the SaaS boom has resulted in an oversaturation of vendors. There is a solution on the market for any problem your team is having – and now organizations are working through the possibility they may have too many vendors in their portfolio.

Streamlined security operations

One of the inherent risks of working with too many vendors is that there are too many gaps and connection points where a security threat could occur. Regardless of how tightly controlled your vendor security protocols are, there will always be increased risk with every new vendor connection. InfoSec teams can reduce this number of connections and cut back unnecessary risk by consolidating vendors.

When it comes to prioritizing vendors during consolidation, teams should look for vendors with the most opportunity to do mor—such as take over the contributions of another vendor—without increased risk. Additionally, you could look at vendors from a security and risk perspective and prioritize those with the most compatible protocols in place.

Read The 2022 State of Vendor Security

In this report, the third in an ongoing series, we’ll highlight the current state of vendor security, identify industry trends, and providerecommendations for how companies can improve their processes for conducting and responding to assessments.

Learn More

Additional benefits of vendor consolidation

Increased security control is only one benefit of vendor consolidation. This process can also help streamline internal operations by bringing disparate processes onto fewer platforms and decreasing costs at a high level. While vendor consolidation is by no means a small effort and can, in some cases, take months or even years to successfully roll-out, the multiple benefits are well worth the effort.

If your team is thinking about consolidating vendor partnerships for more streamlined security operations, Whistic can help. By offering a holistic, one-stop view of all your vendor connections, security assessments, documentation, and updates, Whistic can act as a hub of vendor security visibility. Your team can then identify which vendors are causing the most risk or are not contributing to relevant processes and then kick off the consolidation process.

With all of your vendor data in a single location, your team can quickly assess vendor connections and identify which connections could be strengthened and which can be consolidated into other vendors.

You can learn more about vendor consolidation, streamlining security operations, and how Whistic can help you achieve your vendor risk management goals here.