Key Roles in Third-Party Management
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What is Third-party Management ?
The primary goal of the third-party management process is to ensure that the organization's IT suppliers and the services they provide meet the organization's business requirements. This is intended to maximize the value of the services received. The scope of third-party management process starts from due-diligence, requirements definitions, selection of third-party, managing contracts, reviewing and monitoring third-parties and managing relationships.
Key Roles
Contract manager and third-party manager are two key roles that have a major contribution to the third-party management process: In practice, we often see that some individuals take on the responsibilities described below without a systematic approach, which introduces risks in the services delivered by third-party organization.
Contract manager normally acts at the operational and tactical level where third-party manager acts at the tactical to strategic levels.
Contract Manager
Main responsibilities are
- to contribute in the requirement definitions and IT contract establishment phase
- to ensure services are transitioned into the current service architecture (technology systems, service levels, tools, roles & responsibilities, processes, governance structures etc.) seamlessly
- to ensure knowledge about the IT contract and its services is transferred to the organization.
- to regularly check the compliance of the third-party with contractual obligations, and to escalate any disruptions to the Third-party Manager and senior management.
- To identify improvement opportunities and discuss them with third-party organization
Third-Party Manager
The third-party manager is responsible for all IT contracts with that third-party organization. The Third Party Manager is accountable for maintaining constructive third-party communication, third-party relationships and effectively managing third-party risks while ensuring maximum value is obtained from the third party while safeguarding the organization's interests. Third Party Manager also manages the contract review with stakeholders including the contract manager.
A third-party manager is assigned for every third party organization.
In some cases the third-party manager may also act as a contract manager. Sometimes there may be a need for separate contract manager(s).
You can document or improve your third-party management process using this toolkit below
Third-party management process toolkit
You may also want to assess or audit your process using this checklist below
Third-party management audit checklist