Using Vendor Risk Assessments to Win Deals
Nobody likes completing vendor risk assessment surveys. And trust me, it is not what people in your IT organization want to do.
I guess it should be no surprise that if a vendor risk assessment is part of an RFP/RFI process, there is a good chance that you will end up in the scenario where one or more people in a sales organization are waiting for one or more people in an IT organization to complete the assessment.
As we have helped our subscribers with their vendor risk assessments within the context of an RFP/RFI processes, I’m shocked at the difference in how various organizations respond.
In a perfect world, if you are trying to close a deal and a vendor risk assessment is part of that, then you would want to provide good and complete information as quickly as possible in order to demonstrate to the decision maker on the other side that you have got your proverbial stuff together and you would be a great business partner.
Well, nobody is perfect. But there seems to be quite a difference between good and not-so-good, if not plain bad, when it comes to organizations being responsive when filling out vendor risk assessments as part of a sales process.
Based on our experience, vendor responses to compliance questions during an RFP follow a bell curve. On the one end are the vendors who can fill these things out quickly, completely, and have good responses to the questions. In the middle are most organizations — they eventually complete the assessment and have mediocre answers. On the other end of the spectrum are those to take forever to fill out the assessments, if at all, and if they do fill it out they have some pretty unsatisfactory responses.
If that were the only decision criteria on choosing a vendor, which would you choose? If you are a sales professional, where do you want your organization to be on that scale when it comes time to fill out that vendor risk assessment?
In the age of increasing regulatory and compliance requirements, request for compliance data in an RFP is now the norm. Having your compliance information organized and ready to be shared in a timely manner can mean the difference between gaining sales and market share or having sales opportunities fall through the cracks.
ProcessBolt’s compliance data room gives you the ability to organize your compliance data and share this info when and with whom you want. In addition, you can use our partner network of compliance professionals to gain valuable insights on how you can close your compliance gaps and win more deals. Talk to us today to arrange a demo.
