Third-Party Risk: Fast, Auditable, and Adoptable
Use proportionate risk tiering, defined evidence, explicit approval and event-led review across the supplier lifecycle.
Set due-diligence depth by exposure
Set evidence and approval requirements by risk exposure
Data access, operational criticality, location and regulatory exposure determine the review depth and approval route.
- Baseline
- Annual spend is modest, so the supplier follows a light questionnaire despite sensitive data and payroll dependency.
- Decision
- Tier on data and operational exposure; require security, privacy, resilience and exit evidence.
- Acceptance
- No activation before approval; mitigations have owners; material changes trigger re-review.
- • Tier by access, data sensitivity and operational criticality alongside spend
- • Define what “low / medium / high” means and what evidence each tier requires
- • Make the approval path explicit (who signs off, and what they are accountable for)
Build the audit record into the workflow
- • Centralize evidence (questionnaires, documents, approvals, waivers, decisions)
- • Log the “why” for exceptions (what risk you accepted and what mitigations exist)
- • Add a review cadence: what triggers re-review (scope changes, new features, incidents)
Keep approval points for consequential actions
Agents/LLMs can pre-check documents, flag missing evidence, and draft summaries. Humans still sign off on risk decisions. This keeps accountability while cutting manual effort.
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