Vendor due diligence and commercial comparisons

We test every vendor the way a lender tests a borrower. We examine ownership, financial strength, customer concentration, capacity and references, then set the vendor's offer beside the alternatives in a comparison the board reads in one sitting.

• A vendor due diligence file: ownership, financial position, capacity, customer concentration and references.
• A vendor risk summary with the findings that matter to the commercial decision.
• A like-for-like commercial comparison with scope, price, terms and payment profile normalised.
• An advance-payment and exposure paper stating the most the group would lose if the vendor failed.

• Your board sees the share of material vendors that carry a current due diligence file.
• The largest single-vendor exposure is stated as a share of group spend.
• The board counts advance payments made ahead of a documented review.
• Offers reach the award normalised on one basis, and you see how many were.
• Days from request to a board-ready vendor paper are measured.

Vendors are chosen on price and a good meeting. Nobody reads their accounts, asks who depends on them or checks whether they can deliver at the volume promised. The group learns about the weakness when a delivery fails or an advance payment is lost.

• An advance payment is being requested from a vendor you have never reviewed.
• One vendor supplies a share of your volume that would stop a site if it failed.
• The vendor's references are all introduced by the vendor.
• Two offers cannot be compared because they price different scopes.
• A new vendor is larger in the pitch than in the registry.

Chairmen, chief executives and finance heads who are about to place a large order, pay an advance, accept a long supply term or build an operation around a single vendor.

Qasim Abbas has worked on fundraising from seed to Series B, where counterparties are examined closely before capital moves. He asks of a vendor the questions an investor would ask of a founder.

We set scope at the first call: which vendors, how deep and by when. See how fees work.

Does this work alongside our compliance checks?

Yes. Your compliance team and counsel receive the findings on ownership, financial strength and capacity, and the board reads them beside the commercial comparison.

Can you review a vendor we already use?

Yes. Existing vendors that carry a large share of volume are often the right place to start.

Tell us the vendor, the value at stake and the date of the decision in a private briefing. We say how deep the review goes and what the board holds at the end.