Five Questions with an OG, Dana Bowers: Technology and Risk

MissionOG is fortunate to be supported by a deep network of experienced operators and entrepreneurs. This entry is part of a blog series where we share perspectives from “OGs” – original innovators from specific market segments and/or business disciplines.

 

Dana Bowers is Founder, Board Member and Chief Solutions Architect at Venminder where she assists with the firm’s long-term strategy and innovative product development.

 

PLEASE DESCRIBE YOUR BACKGROUND

My background has always been connected to banking in one way or another. I worked at a bank straight out of high school as a means of putting myself thru college. What I didn’t know at the time was how incredibly helpful that banking education would be in my future. My entrepreneurial journey ultimately focused on providing software solutions to financial institutions beginning with the online payments business iPay Technologies and now with Venminder, a provider of third party risk management solutions. My skills are primarily in start-ups – the thrill of starting with nothing (no customers, no revenue and no product) and building that into a sustainable business. In both cases, I hired a CEO once the businesses were steady and ready to scale. Today I am the Chief Solutions Architect for Venminder which is just a fancy title for understanding what the market needs next and ensuring the company is prepared to deliver.

 

WHY DID YOU START VENMINDER?

The idea for Venminder was spawned out of iPay. Since iPay was a high-risk vendor to its banking clients, we learned a lot about how to be a good and compliant vendor. Our clients began telling us how they wished all their vendors followed our example. Our response was “Sounds like another business opportunity!” Once iPay was sold (to JKHY for $300M in 2010), we decided to invest our attention and resources on third party risk management.

 

HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY EVOLVED TO PROVIDE GREATER OVERSIGHT OF COMPANIES?

If there is one thing you can count on, it is that regulations will continue to grow. Coupled with the number of third parties being deployed also rapidly expanding, it became apparent that technology would play a critical role in the process. The sheer volume of the workload requires systems that manage the entire lifecycle of a third party – from onboarding to offboarding. Clients need user friendly systems that drive workflows for the parties involved, document the process and report the results. One small (but complex) example is the redlining process for a new vendor contract and all the reviews, comments and approvals required internally and externally. Having a system that drives that process and captures each participant’s input along the way is invaluable. The alternative is trying to keep track of so.many.emails and a desperate attempt to keep up with versions in a shared folder. That’s just one of hundreds of examples where technology keeps everyone on the same page.

 

HOW IS AUTOMATION CHANGING COMPLIANCE?

It’s no surprise that AI will likely be the next evolution of technology. A simple first step would be to just ask the AI solution to read thru and summarize all evidence provided saving countless hours. After that you would naturally ask AI to make recommendations. Eventually, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a world where your AI assistant greets you every morning with something like “All is well today. I’ll let you know if something changes. Otherwise, I’ve got this.” In the meantime, as automation and AI evolves, at a minimum automation needs to be the workhorse that enables less people to cover more work. As I mentioned above, the multiplication effect of more regulations and more third parties means that automation is really the only salvation for being able to do more with less people.

 

HOW IS THE ROLE OF THE PROCUREMENT FUNCTION EVOLVING?

Historically, procurement was primarily focused on the buying process – price and terms. Risk was rarely, if ever, part of the procurement process. While I still see a mix, there is definitely a trend for procurement to either own risk or at least acknowledge risk is part of the equation. Risk can be addressed thru SMEs inside procurement or by bringing in the appropriate SMEs in the various lines of business to participate. There is also a trend in finding solutions that can address the entire risk management and purchasing process into a single platform. The challenge is in finding the platform that is strong in all aspects.

 

WHERE ARE THERE STILL OPPORTUNITIES TO OPTIMIZE THE VENDOR PROCUREMENT PROCESS?

Procurement is still far too manual for many organizations. Finding an application that can automate the workflows for both risk, contract and payment would be ideal. But more specifically, I’d love to see a certificate organization that can vouch (think stamp of approval) for the safety and soundness of vendors under consideration. It exists today in the healthcare industry with a Hi-Trust certification, but no one has expanded that into other industries (yet). As a vendor, being able to say “I am certified by XYZ company” would greatly speed up the sales process. For the buyer, it isn’t unusual for the vetting process to take weeks which is costly in many ways – resources, time to market, overhead, etc.