Are you confident that your vendor network is performing to the highest of standards? In an environment where organisations are becoming increasingly global, more and more work is being outsourced to third-party vendors in an ever increasing supply chain. As such, it is now more important than ever to ensure that those you are doing business with share your values where quality, cost and reliability are concerned.

What is a Vendor Integrity Audit?
Many of us use third party vendors in order to lower costs and gain flexibility. However, at the same time, the current economic climate is seeing organisations trying to cut lead times and profit margins and in many cases, vendors may respond by de-prioritising your organisation, or cutting corners in the service they provide to you.

A Vendor Integrity Audit serves to verify the goods and services that are being provided by current and potential vendors, assessing their ability to meet the quality and timeliness standards that you require.

Undertaking a Vendor Integrity Audit?
An effective vendor screening programme can help you to ensure that all those within your business network are operating to the same standards as you, and limit the risk of disruption to your own organisation. Vendor failures such as substandard or defective products, failure to supply within a given timeframe or budget, conflict of interests, or failure to abide with environmental or labour laws, can all be avoided with a Vendor Integrity Audit.

A thorough screening process will consider both current and potential vendors, identifying existing areas of concern, and identifying which group of providers or contractors pose the biggest threat to your business. The Audit will serve to verify the credentials of external parties, consider their business history and asses their commercial integrity.

Regents’ Approach
At Regents, we begin any Vendor Integrity Audit by consulting with you to ensure that we fully understand your organisation’s objectives and requirements. Each Audit is adjusted to suit the individual business, however as standard practice, we will:

• Identify the most critical vendors or contractors
• Evaluate the level, type and methodology of screening to be used
• Explain and educate your screening program to your employees and the vendors
• Incorporate any specific ethical and contractual obligations into the vendor program
• Organise ongoing monitoring of vendors via an agreed timetable
• Conduct background screening of the vendor or contractor

Regents’ provides a comprehensive report highlighting any deficiencies or discrepancies found with current and proposed providers. We will provide recommendations on how best to remedy problems without further disrupting business, and help you to implement a regular review and monitoring process.