Gartner defines IT vendor risk management (IT VRM) as the discipline of addressing the residual risk that businesses and governments face when working with external service providers, IT vendors and related third parties. The scope typically addresses risks related to data protection, business continuity, security and other risk domains as relevant to laws, regulation and industry practices.
Gartner defines Integrated risk management (IRM) as the combined technology, processes and data that serves to fulfill the objective of enabling the simplification, automation and integration of strategic, operational and IT risk management across an organization.
The third-party risk management (TPRM) technology market offers solutions to identify, assess, manage, monitor and report on third-party risks associated with vendors, suppliers, distributors, agents, partners or other third parties. Solutions in this market can support a wide range of TPRM workflows across various risk domains. TPRM platforms in this market address the needs of a diverse range of customers and risk domains, including legal, compliance, procurement, supply chain, IT, cybersecurity and other teams that work with or provide routine oversight of third parties. Some technology solutions offer enterprise third-party risk management workflow as a feature, along with risk tiering, due diligence, risk mapping, metrics and reporting mechanisms. Other platforms may facilitate integration with risk data subscriptions, data aggregators or other subscriptions. The TPRM technology market is a complex array of solutions servicing many business functions across an enterprise. TPRM solution providers can be categorized into technology platforms and tools, or risk-domain-specific data and insights.