Does Your Pre-Contract Due Diligence Leave You Exposed?

2 minute read

June 2015

by DEV

Today’s global, digital economy opens up a world of opportunities—and a whole new world of risk exposure. When important parts of your business can be fulfilled anywhere, risks may be everywhere —and responsibility cannot be deferred. In the minds of regulators, partners, investors and, perhaps most importantly, your clients and customers, the buck stops with you.

The best way to manage vendor risk is by intercepting it at the start. Do you know the status of your current Vendor Risk Management process or what steps could you take to improve it?

How does your firm’s pre-contract due diligence process stack up?

Take the 12-question assessment below to assess your due diligence process—and uncover opportunities to make it more effective and efficient.

  • Is your pre-contract due diligence process consistent, vendor by vendor?
  • Can your internal lines of business initiate due diligence quickly?
  • Do these lines have an easy way of articulating their needs, and the company’s potential exposure to vendor risks?
  • Are you able to capture relevant information across all nine domains of due diligence?
  • Have you established risk thresholds for approving, restricting, or denying a vendor relationship?
  • Do you have a repository of questions and templates you can use to assemble external questionnaires?
  • Have you created an easy way for collecting supporting documentation?
  • Can you quickly track vendor progress on the questionnaire?
  • Have you automated your workflow for efficiency and accountability?
  • Do your risk analysts have access to dashboards that represent vendor status in a glance?
  • Does your process create scorecards that represent vendor risk thresholds—and potential next steps?
  • Can you defend the objectivity of your vendor risk assessments to regulators?

If you cannot answer “yes” to all these questions, you may want to revisit your vendor risk management procedures.

The first step on that road is downloading our new ebook, Conducting Pre-Contract Due Diligence in a Digitally Connected World. Here, you will learn how to eliminate exposure to vendor risk from the start. Sections include:

  • Why using pre-contract due diligence allows you to intercept risks before they become problems
  • A nine-step process to create a rational due diligence program
  • Why manual due-diligence is just not manageable
  • How to harness the power of automation to streamline vendor onboarding

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About Us

ProcessUnity is a leading provider of cloud-based applications for risk and compliance management. The company’s software as a service (SaaS) platform gives organizations the control to assess, measure, and mitigate risk and to ensure the optimal performance of key business processes. ProcessUnity’s flagship solution, ProcessUnity Vendor Risk Management, protects companies and their brands by reducing risks from third-party vendors and suppliers. ProcessUnity helps customers effectively and efficiently assess and monitor both new and existing vendors – from initial due diligence and onboarding through termination. Headquartered outside of Boston, Massachusetts, ProcessUnity is used by the world’s leading financial service firms and commercial enterprises. For more information, visit www.processunity.com.