In this article:
About Company Hierarchy
The Company Hierarchy is a structure of information that helps to further clarify the relationship between companies; how they are linked to each other like parent vs. subsidiary entities. Hierarchies are a new way to visualize ecosystem risk, an alternative view of the relationship between Scorecards in addition to Groups and Portfolios.
Company Hierarchy Example
Why is this important?
Failure to understand a company’s relationship with other organizations can lead to a lack of visibility, understanding, and knowledge needed to make essential business decisions.
To learn how a business operates, it is essential to understand how an organization is structured. By demonstrating the links between different companies in a corporate family, the company Hierarchy tree helps display and measure risk across different enterprise areas.
Overall Solution
If a Hierarchy is available, it can be viewed by clicking on the “Hierarchy (beta)” tab. The page will show the corporate entity and subsidiary structure, as well as their respective SecurityScorecard grades. Click on the business domain to gain deeper insights about a specific company in the Hierarchy tree.
How is the hierarchy organized?
- Ultimate Parent: the top-level holding company is the entity at the top of the Hierarchy, usually the global holding company (if a multinational corporate).
- Parent: The highest tier within an organization, but not the ultimate parent holding company. It will have other companies reporting to it and would then report to another legal body.
- Subsidiary (Child): A company that has a significant percentage of its holding by another corporation and can use a different legal corporate name.
Filter and Sort
- A Filter and Sort feature are available on the right side of the Hierarchy tree to filter, sort, and search loaded data for different criteria values that you are particularly interested in, including grades A-F, as well as for specific industry types.
- For example, to filter the companies within the Company Hierarchy with security Scorecard ratings of “A.” The display will show the ultimate global parent, the companies with A grade rating, and their respective parent companies to provide a detailed filtered view.
Please note that grades are only available for the Scorecards you follow in your Portfolio. The feature is also in Beta with limited hierarchies available with ~ 2,000 Scorecards linked to Ultimate Parent Scorecards. Companies cannot edit Hierarchies themselves as they are maintained by the SecurityScorecard team by utilizing multiple public and private data sources to best ensure accuracy. We will continue to evolve this capability and if you would like a Hierarchy created and/or updated for your company please contact support@securityscorecard.io.
Step by Step Guide
- Navigate to My Scorecard or a third-party Scorecard
- Select the Hierarchy Tab
- View the Hierarchy or email support@securityscorecard.io with the hierarchy information that should be displayed.
Q&A
What's the difference between Custom Scorecards and Company Hierarchies?
The Scorecard’s digital footprints are mutually independent. The mutual relationship between two Scorecards in a Hierarchy does not necessarily impact the score of either of the Scorecards. Scorecards and Custom Scorecards are independent of the structure visualized in Hierarchies
Published Custom Scorecards can also be part of the Hierarchy.
- A Custom Scorecard’s very nature is that it represents a subset of its parent’s digital footprint.
- Custom Scorecards can also be used in a Hierarchy to achieve the “rolling-up effect” by splitting a Scorecard into multiple Custom Scorecards, representing different departments, and linking them underneath their Scorecard (i.e Parent).
Does the Company Hierarchy inform the Digital Footprint of a scorecard(s)?
At this point, the Company Hierarchy feature does not provide insight to domains that are populated on a scorecard's digital footprint.