Rethinking vendor due diligence
Articles on TPRM strategy, vendor risk, and how modern teams are changing the way they approach third-party assessments.
Eight of the 21 TPRM teams we spoke with asked about contract tracking. The date that matters most isn't the renewal date. It's the notice date, the last moment you have leverage.
38% of TPRM teams we spoke with asked whether AI can read a SOC report instead of sending a questionnaire. The question underneath is older than AI: what were questionnaires for in the first place?
When a big vulnerability like PHP2Shell drops, many TPRM teams send a questionnaire to every critical vendor. A LinkedIn poll split 22 to 12 on whether that is worth it. Here are the honest pros and cons.
In October we spoke with 21 TPRM teams. The question that came up most was not about AI. It was whether a new tool connects to the systems they already live in.
In financial institutions, contract data and vendor risk data sit in separate systems that rarely talk to each other. Why the two cycles should stay decoupled, but the relationship between them has to stay visible in one view.
One team reviews 800 vendors a year without a backlog. The operating model: score-based tiering, evidence-first automated scoring, and review cadence set by risk — not the contract renewal calendar.
Flowdown pushes cybersecurity requirements from a prime down to its subs. Where the obligation comes from, how your data sets your level (Level 1 vs Level 2), and what July 2026 changed — and did not.
AI assistants keep describing the missing piece in TPRM: a reviewer that reads every vendor document, cross-references evidence, scores control effectiveness, and cites its work. That description is Docubark.
OneTrust is raising renewal prices by multiples — 275%+ increases and a new $10K annual minimum. Here's how to get ahead of it before your TPRM renewal lands.
Most teams build a TPRM program to manage their vendors. But there's a second job almost no one designs for — and it might be the one that wins you deals.
OneTrust helped define the TPRM category. But complexity, pricing, and bolted-on AI are pushing teams to look elsewhere. Here are the best alternatives worth evaluating in 2026.
ProcessUnity has been a fixture in TPRM for over two decades. But its aging architecture, rigid questionnaires, and lack of AI have teams looking for something better.
A quantitative inherent risk score replaces gut feel with something defensible, repeatable, and auditable — making sure your review capacity goes to the vendors that actually need it.
Docubark recently wrapped our SOC 2 Type 2 audit. Since we usually sit on the other side of these reports evaluating vendors, going through one ourselves was clarifying. Some flattering, some less so.
Every subcontractor touching CUI has to meet the same CMMC flow-down requirements you do. Here's why manual vendor management collapses fast — and what a workable system needs to look like before Phase 2 hits.
In April 2026, Vercel disclosed a breach through a compromised third-party AI tool. Here's how to think about it — and why the vendor's logo is the start of a risk conversation, not the end.
For twenty years, vendor risk management has tried to gauge risk by interrogating vendor controls. But we can barely understand our own controls from the inside. A better approach focuses on objective, verifiable signals.
Every TPRM team knows the feeling. You send out a security questionnaire. Three weeks later, after follow-ups and a call you didn't want, you get back a document full of vague answers. Did you actually learn anything?
Workday processes payroll for thousands of enterprises. When you send them a security questionnaire, you already know what's going to happen. Here's a better approach.
If questionnaires add little value for large enterprise vendors, where does the real vendor risk in your program actually live? With small vendors. Specifically: small vendors with high inherent risk.
Plot your vendor portfolio on a simple Cartesian plane: vendor size on one axis, inherent risk on the other. This framework clarifies most of the hard decisions your program faces.
Vendor security questionnaires are failing. Instead, anchor everything in inherent risk. Let that drive the depth of review and the type of evidence you collect.