How to Automate Your Vendor Risk Management Program

As vendor inventories grow, organizations face increasing workloads. More vendors mean more assessments, more documentation, and more time-consuming manual tasks. This can lead to delays, errors, and other inefficiencies.

Are manual processes holding your vendor risk management program back?

For many organizations, the answer is yes. That’s why vendor risk management automation is a top priority for many organizations. By automating key processes, organizations can streamline workflows, reduce errors, and scale their VRM program without piling more work on their teams. 

Benefits of Vendor Risk Management Automation 

Automation often requires an upfront investment, and that can make organizations hesitant. But the long-term benefits far outweigh the costs.

It’s important to note that automation doesn’t replace employees — it empowers them. While automation handles repetitive tasks, employees can focus on high-value activities like strategic risk analysis, vendor negotiations, and regulatory compliance.

Here’s 5 benefits of vendor risk management automation:  

• Improved efficiency – Save time by automating data entry, risk assessments, and reporting, allowing processes to move faster while freeing up employees for strategic work. 
• Reduced errors – Automation reduces human mistakes that lead to gaps and inaccurate risk assessments are quickly identified and corrected, supporting better decision-making.  
• Scaled program – Vendor risk management programs need more resources as they grow. Automation scales with your program, helping manage the workload without requiring additional resources.  
• Better risk mitigation – Automated workflows aid in quicker identification and mitigation of vendor risks, ensuring your organization is protected.  
• Lower costs – Automating vendor risk management reduces the need for manual labor, lowering operational costs while freeing teams to focus on strategic initiatives.  

Related Content: How Outsourcing Benefits Both New and Maturing Third-Party Risk Management Programs 

How to Automate Vendor Risk Management 

While organizations recognize the inefficiencies of manual processes, many struggle with where to start. Here’s a practical approach: 

• Review current processes and procedures – Identify the biggest pain points. Are vendor risk assessments slowing down onboarding? Is due diligence taking too long? Are repetitive manual tasks consuming too much time? Engaging stakeholders across departments can help pinpoint bottlenecks.
• Identify vendor risk management automation tools – Check your current systems for built-in automation capabilities you might be able to leverage for vendor risk management. While they might offer some efficiencies, dedicated vendor risk management software provides a more comprehensive solution. If you already have VRM software, look for ways to activate automation within the software. 
• Streamline vendor risk management activities – Look at every step of the vendor risk management lifecycle and identify what you can automate. For example, automate risk assessments and due diligence documentation reviews. Set up automated alerts and use risk intelligence to monitor vendor risks.  
• Establish automated reporting – Review current vendor risk management reports for opportunities to automate data collection with software.
• Integrate automations with existing systems – Ensure your vendor risk management software integrates with your organization’s other systems. This provides for cohesive risk management across the organization.  

Where Software Achieves Vendor Risk Management Automation

Software platforms are the most effective ways to automate your vendor risk management program. 

Let’s look at key vendor risk management automation areas software helps with: 

• Vendor selection. Software offers automation for routing and reviewing documents used in vendor selection including proposals, pricing and completed vendor questionnaires. 
• Risk assessments. Automation can alert stakeholders to upcoming vendor risk assessments and route tasks to the right task owner. Workflow automation can also provide reminders for late or overdue tasks. 
• Due diligence. Using the database from your vendor selection process, automate the selection and delivery of due diligence questionnaires, so you don't have to manually perform the same task every year. When the questionnaires come back, automate the routing and review of the vendor responses. Lighten the workload with vendor risk management software that provides subject matter experts to review and offer qualified opinions on the vendor’s risk.  
• Contract management. Use automated workflows to push the contract review to relevant stakeholders. Automate notifications for key dates on the contract, like renewals, so you’re never caught off guard by price hikes or unexpected renewals.  
• Ongoing monitoring. Automate any repetitive document request. A vendor risk management platform can collect vendor responses with automated routing directing responses to the correct reviewer or approver. 
• Reporting. Automated data collection and reporting can fill in predefined report templates.  

The Bottom Line of Vendor Risk Management Automation

Automation isn’t about replacing people — it’s about equipping them with the tools to work smarter. A well-automated vendor risk management program increases efficiency, strengthens risk mitigation, and supports business scalability.  

Investing in the right software makes automation seamless, ensuring your VRM program stays proactive, not reactive.

Are you ready to take the next step but need to make the case for vendor risk management?

Learn how to create and present a business case.