Brightcove

Brightcove is an online video hosting, sharing, and streaming platform based in Boston, Massachusetts. They provide media support and solutions to media companies, e-commerce platforms, publishers, marketers, and enterprises around the world.

Cara Bongiorni is a Business Security Analyst at Brightcove and helps manage compliance, vendor risk, and security questionnaires at the company.

The Challenge

Prior to UpGuard, Brightcove had room for improvement with their vendor management processes. Their initial security assessments for new vendors were created using Word documents, consisting of a list of generated questions from Shared Assessments. Brightcove would then use those questions to generate custom questionnaires, customized to the vendor. Afterward, vendor responses and the list of vendors were manually tracked using Google spreadsheets. All spreadsheets, questionnaires, and other documentation were then stored in a Google Drive as the master storage.

“Without a centralized tool in place, our risk assessment process created extra work without any reward and the reporting capabilities were limited.”

The Solution

When Brightcove was choosing between various platforms to help manage their vendors, one of the deciding factors that led to choosing UpGuard was the easy user interface. They felt that the platform was much easier to use with more functionality, while many of the other platforms felt a little outdated and not as user-friendly.

Once a new procurement team and vendor procurement processes were established, Brightcove was able to bring in a software solution and fine-tune their procurement process. After onboarding UpGuard, they were able to mature their procurement process quickly, using the platform to manage vendor procurement easily step-by-step.

For example, when Brightcove decides to onboard a new vendor, they add them to the UpGuard platform and begin monitoring their risks, as well as using UpGuard to track and store any questionnaire responses, additional evidence, and security documentation. Brightcove is also able to utilize UpGuard’s security ratings system during the vendor renewal or audit process to assess their security performance.

Another feature that Brightcove uses to manage their vendors is the live notifications, which automatically alert Brightcove if there is a potential vendor risk exposure. Once the security engineering team receives an alert, they’re able to jump in and assess the issue right away. Brightcove uses UpGuard to monitor all of their vendors throughout their lifecycle, not just for new vendors during procurement.

“The UpGuard user experience was much nicer than other platforms and easier to use, while other platforms felt more outdated and not as friendly.”

The Results

After onboarding UpGuard, Brightcove was able to see immediate results within a month of using the platform. One of the biggest changes was the amount of time it took to complete a security assessment of new vendors, which could take up to two weeks or more before using UpGuard. Now, it takes a week or less for Brightcove to complete the entire process, which is almost a 50% improvement from before.

Brightcove also uses UpGuard across multiple departments in the company, including security engineering, procurement, legal, operations, and IT, in which many of the teams use UpGuard at least once a day. Bongiorni notes that they have had a good experience with the UpGuard Customer Success team, that the team is incredibly responsive, and maintains strong communication with key stakeholders in the company.

Overall, Brightcove was able to optimize many of their processes with UpGuard, from procurement to risk assessment to evidence-gathering, which has helped them mature their vendor management program.

“Before UpGuard, procuring new vendors and reviewing the security assessments took two weeks or more to complete. Now, it doesn’t take more than a week to complete the entire process.”