Whenever you think about your vendor security assessment process (which, if you’re like most people, is constantly), what’s the first word or phrase that comes to mind? If your answer is “seamless” or “highlight of my day” or “chef’s kiss,” please feel free to stop reading now.

For the remaining 99.9% of you, vendor assessments likely conjure words like “cumbersome” and “time consuming,” or even “a drain on the sales cycle.” If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Headaches can be common in the security review process for a number of reasons, including:

Use of one-off security questionnaires that place huge time constraints on infosec teams
Lack of automation, leading to manual, repetitive tasks (that take even more time)
Long delays in the sales or renewal cycles due to endless back-and-forth
Poor visibility into assessments for sales, security, and procurement teams leading to breakdowns in communication and poor engagement
Inconsistent use of proper security documentation, which can lead to risk

Vendor security reviews are critical for protecting your data and your customers, but there’s no reason they should be a “necessary evil.” Today, we’re going to take a look at the ways Whistic helps relieve the pain of the assessment process. Then, we’ll show you how our Salesforce integration gives you even more of a good thing.

What is Whistic and how does it work?

Whistic is a third-party risk management platform built on a growing network of 35,000+ organizations. The Whistic Network allows vendors and customers to more quickly share security documentation to build trust and transparency, reduce risk, and accelerate business activity and revenue.

Each Whistic user organization creates a unique Whistic Profile, which includes all documentation required for a thorough vendor security assessment. The Whistic Trust Catalog centralizes these profiles so buyers and sellers can proactively evaluate risk, without the need for tedious, manual security questionnaires.

With centralized, standardized security profiles, organizations are thus able to:

Reduce time spent tracking down vendor contacts
Reduce inbound requests for security review by sharing profiles proactively and early in the sales cycle
Reduce time spent waiting for vendor responses to security questionnaires
Onboard vendors and complete recurring reviews faster
Free up both infosec and sales to focus on business-critical tasks instead of repetitive ones

3 ways the Whistic Salesforce integration unlocks even more value

Now that you’ve got a primer for how Whistic is helping organizations dramatically reduce the pain of vendor security assessments, let’s take a closer look at one of the most powerful ways we accomplish that goal: our Salesforce integration.

The Salesforce application works by allowing infosec and sales to share your security posture with customers and prospects at the push of a button. This can impact your vendor assessment process and your bottom line in several important ways. Here are the top three.

1. Shorten the sales cycle

We get it: the sales team isn’t always the top priority for infosec. It can’t be; your security team has an entire organization to protect. But relieving the pain of manual security assessments in the sales cycle can not only help close deals faster: it can also ease the burden on infosec, too.

Our Salesforce integration accomplishes this by:

Creating consistency: With the proper permissions and controls built into your Salesforce instance, the Whistic integration gives you the certainty that the proper documentation is being shared to vetted, trusted contacts—without the need for one-off approvals.
Empowering self-service: Rather than asking infosec for security documentation every time they engage a prospect, sales can now share that information proactively and earlier in the process. That leads to less back-and-forth among infosec, sales, and prospects.
Keeping it simple: The integration is easy to use, so there is less need for intensive training. For sales teams that are growing (or experience high turnover), this simplicity can get new salespeople up and running fast and with minimal hand-holding.

And don’t forget the most important part for your business: shorter sales cycles help serve your customers faster, create more revenue, and realize the value of software procurement sooner.

2. Build your automation chops

Automation can often be a buzzword in spaces like this, but that overuse belies an enduring truth: the easiest way to iron out rote, tedious processes is to automate them. The Whistic Salesforce app can give you some quick wins in the automation game.

No more “check and approve”: Typically, a request to view a security profile would require manual approval by the security team. With the integration, you can automate approval permissions for your entire contact list.
NDAs are A-OK: Similarly, the integration allows you to check a box verifying that your contacts have signed the proper non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) automatically. That means your prospects won’t have to navigate an additional field or be approved manually.
Slack notifications to improve communication: The integration will also automatically push Salesforce data into Slack, alerting your sales and security teams whenever someone has viewed or shared your security profile. This helps sales stay engaged in the process and more accurately understand pipeline activity.

3. Prove ROI

Increasingly, CISOs and infosec leaders tell us they are seeking more ways to tie their activity to business metrics. Resources are always tight, and the ability to demonstrate clear ROI on security activity can lead to more investment, greater headcount, and better security outcomes.

With the Salesforce integration, Whistic users have access to out-of-the-box reporting that helps you track and visualize shares of your security profile by Opportunity, by Account, or by Lead. This can help you correlate the impact of your vendor security assessment process to sales outcomes and revenue. It can also help you measure the ROI of your investment in Whistic, to boot.

Ready to make the leap in your assessment process? Whistic can help

If your business is bogged down by manual security reviews, inbound questionnaire requests, or protracted procurement and sales processes, it might be time to consider a new approach with the right partner.

We’re proud of the work we do to help our customers, but there’s no need to take our word for it. We believe in the power of the Whistic Network so much that we offer everyone a Whistic Profile to get you started—absolutely free.

We also have a dedicated customer success team to walk you through the platform and the Salesforce integration in a hassle-free environment. If you’re ready for the big leap, reach out to schedule your free demo today.