Release Allows Customers to Implement a Best-in-Class Enterprise Risk and Compliance Management Program

Archer Technologies (Archer), a leading provider of automated enterprise risk and compliance management solutions, today announced the release of the Archer SmartSuite Framework version 4.0. This new release allows Archer clients to take a centralized, automated and proactive approach to assessing risk and validating compliance across the enterprise. Driven entirely by the requirements of Fortune 1000 clients in highly regulated industries, Archer's enhanced Framework supports the most powerful enterprise risk and compliance management functionality on the market today.

"By listening to our requirements and delivering on our needs, the Archer team has continued to be a trusted business partner," said Bruce Bonsall, vice president and chief information security officer for MassMutual. "We were one of many clients that Archer worked with to create version 4.0 of the Archer SmartSuite Framework, and we are eager to further enhance our risk and compliance processes using Archer's new risk management capabilities."

Archer developed its vision for the Archer SmartSuite Framework 4.0 after interviewing more than 50 clients in Fortune 1000 companies to determine trends and challenges in their risk and compliance management programs. By listening closely to client needs and investing more than 80,000 hours in engineering and quality assurance effort, Archer has delivered the most comprehensive, feature-rich release in the company's history.

Risk Management Capabilities

With a focus on automated, targeted risk assessment functionality, the Archer SmartSuite Framework 4.0 supports the following:

Assessment Automation - Within minutes, risk managers can builddynamic questionnaires and deliver them online through targetedassessment campaigns. Archer provides a Question Library so clientscan easily import Archer question packs or their existingquestionnaires for use in future assessment periods. Using Archer'sautomated scoring and findings generation features, companies canrapidly determine areas of inherent risk and address issues ofnon-compliance.

"Ask Once, Answer Many" Approach - Archer's "ask once, answer many"capabilities allow clients to link a question to multipleauthoritative sources and use the answers to that question to showcompliance with all pertinent regulations, greatly reducingduplication of effort in the assessment process.

Clear Reporting - Archer provides a rollup view of assessments, remediation tasks and the organization's inherent and residual risk. Through powerful executive dashboards, clients gain a consolidatedview of this information with the ability to drill down for moredetails with a simple click of the mouse. Organizations can alsomonitor risk and compliance trends over time.

Total Flexibility - Archer clients have full control over the userinterface, workflow processes, question scoring, task managementand more. Because Archer does not attempt to impose a specific riskmanagement methodology, clients are free to define their ownprocesses and use the Archer SmartSuite Framework 4.0 to implementthem in a consistent, measurable and repeatable manner.

"Highly regulated companies are drowning in a flood of external and internal assessments, audit requests and vendor risk management initiatives. These efforts are time-consuming, costly and often redundant," said Andrew Jaquith, senior analyst with the Yankee Group. "Tools like Archer Risk Management can help enterprises organize and manage their risk assessments in a coherent way, and can impart a global view of their internal and external risk exposures. Archer's latest release sets a high bar for risk and compliance management vendors."

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