Assessing Third Party Risk Before You Sign a Contract
The Problem: Discovering Risks Too Late
Most organizations are scrambling to address critical supplier risks after contracts are signed—sometimes after vendors are already operational. This reactive approach leads to costly delays, project friction, and last-minute surprises that could have been avoided.
The solution? Shift left in your procurement process. By assessing risk earlier, you streamline vendor selection, reduce negotiation friction, and improve stakeholder alignment across procurement, legal, and compliance teams.
Practical Framework for Early Risk Assessment
Nita (founder/CEO of Kohli Advisors) and Joseph (director of product management at Certa) shared actionable strategies for integrating risk assessment into your intake process.
- Start With the Product or Service Risk, Not the Vendor: Evaluate the specific service or product that you are obtaining from the vendor, rather than just assessing their capabilities overall. For instance, what kind of data will they handle?
- Use Inherent Risk Questionnaires: Create targeted questionnaires focused on specific risk domains relevant to each vendor type, and use the results to guide your vendor selection process and the depth of your due diligence. For instance, is the vendor located in a high-risk country?
- Align Controls to the Engagement: Establish controls that match the context and criticality of each specific service or product, focusing resources on what matters most rather than following standard checklists.
- Make Risk a Shared Priority: Bring procurement, legal, security, and compliance teams together early in the process to work collaboratively as enablers rather than operating in silos that create bottlenecks.
From Compliance Burden to Competitive Advantage
Successful organizations view risk management as a strategic enabler, not a compliance burden. By automating risk as a part of onboarding, teams can focus on building resilient partnerships.
Watch the full webinar to see live AI demonstrations, practical implementation frameworks, and learn how leading procurement teams are transforming third party risk from bottleneck to business enabler.
