From Vendor Liability to Competitive Advantage: A $4.88M Opportunity

Picture this: You’re in your next board meeting, and a director asks, “How confident are you that our 500+ vendors won’t be the reason we make headlines tomorrow?”

If you hesitate even for a bit, you’re not alone. The average cost of a data breach reached an all-time high in 2024 of $4.88 million, but here’s alarming: 38% of third-party breaches are caused by your trusted partners, vendors, and suppliers and data breaches from vendors increased by 22% this year.

But here’s what is more alarming: 98% of organizations have third-party vendors who have suffered data breaches. 42% of manufacturing organizations experienced breaches tied to vendor access in 2025, and supply chain breaches jumped 68% compared to last year.

The real cost isn’t just the $4.88 million cleanup. It’s the lost customer trust, regulatory scrutiny, operational disruption, and competitive advantage

The painful reality: Without robust third-party risk management, your cybersecurity spending may be ineffective against vendor-related threats.

Immediate question to ask: How many vendors have been assessed for cyber risk in the last 12 months? If you’re like most organizations, the answer is: not nearly enough.

You know about your tier-1 vendors, the big software providers, major suppliers, the cloud platforms. But what about their subcontractors? What about the small IT services company that has access to your network at 2 AM? What about the cleaning company that could plug a USB drive into an unlocked workstation?

Every third-party relationship is a potential entry point. Every vendor login. Every data-sharing agreement. Every integration. Every API connection. They’re all doors into your most valuable assets.

The most sophisticated threat actors know this. They’re not trying to break through your front door anymore; they’re walking through your suppliers’ back doors.

Here’s what changes when you implement a comprehensive TPRM program with a platform:

Visibility becomes your superpower. Instead of discovering vendor risks during a crisis (or worse, during a breach), you identify and address them proactively. We need to simplify this process by providing a unified platform where all data related to third-party risk can be stored, analyzed and managed efficiently in a single system of record.

Speed becomes your competitive advantage. Automate critical third-party risk management processes from sourcing and onboarding, through post-contract due diligence, vendor service reviews and eventual offboarding. What used to take weeks now takes days. What used to take days now takes hours.

Compliance becomes effortless. Instead of scrambling during audit season, you have continuous, real-time documentation of every vendor relationship and risk assessment.

The ROI That Writes Itself

Let us ask ourselves a simple question: What would a $5 million data breach cost your organization? Not just the immediate financial impact, I’m talking about:

Now compare that to the investment in a comprehensive TPRM program. The math isn’t even close.

The Urgency Factor: Why 2025 is the Year to Act

By 2025, the global cost of cyber breaches is projected to reach $10.5 trillion, growing at a rate of 15 percent annually. The threat landscape isn’t stabilizing, it’s accelerating.

Delayed implementation of comprehensive third-party risk management directly increases organizational exposure and potential financial impact.

The question isn’t whether you can afford to invest in TPRM. The question is whether you can afford not to. The board question every CXO should ask

At your next board meeting, I want you to ask this question: “If we experienced a major data breach tomorrow that originated from one of our vendors, would we be able to demonstrate that we took every reasonable precaution to prevent it?”

If the answer is anything other than an unequivocal “yes,” you have your budget justification for 2025.

The Executive Action Plan

Immediate (Next 30 Days):

• Audit your current vendor risk exposure
• Calculate your true cost of vendor-related incidents
• Benchmark against industry-leading TPRM capabilities

Strategic (Next 90 Days):

• Build the business case for comprehensive TPRM investment
• Evaluate platforms that can scale with your growth
• Align TPRM with your broader digital transformation strategy

Transformational (Next 12 Months):

• Implement end-to-end TPRM automation
• Create vendor risk as a competitive differentiator
• Build the resilient vendor ecosystem that powers sustainable growth

• Cybersecurity
• Third‑party liability
• Vendor Risk Management