Is your third party onboarding process putting deals at risk?

Multinational companies don’t grow alone. They rely on third parties for the networks, expertise, and infrastructure needed to scale and enter new markets. Without this support, growth would be slower and much more costly.

While third parties unlock opportunities, they also introduce risks. In the past year alone, major corporations faced hundreds of millions in fines for alleged compliance breaches. Whether it was bribery, corruption, or violations of emerging human rights due diligence laws, third parties were a common factor.

Today, third party risk goes far beyond traditional bribery and corruption typologies. A familiar case under Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act saw several major car manufacturers come under scrutiny for sourcing parts from a region associated with human rights abuses and forced labour.

This case, along with others such as the reported discovery of child labour in Shein’s supply chain, reinforces the importance of third-party due diligence in identifying risks before entering into any agreement.

The risk of having a third party onboarding queue 

Historically, third party due diligence required a deep, human-led approach. Subject matter experts with knowledge of regulatory frameworks and jurisdictional nuances would conduct the due diligence. If in-house resources weren’t available, companies would outsource to consultancies, often waiting days or even weeks for a report. As a result, third party due diligence became known for being slow, manual, and resource-heavy.

The problem is that a slow third party onboarding process impacts the business. Deals get pushed back, products or services can’t be sold, and ultimately, revenue is delayed. When revenue is delayed, frustration grows across every level of the organisation since teams might be forced to adjust plans, miss targets, or scramble to manage expectations. 

Departments are often interdependent, so a compliance delay ripples across the business. Eventually, compliance teams, whose job is to protect the company, are seen as a prevention unit rather than business enablers.  

Companies must move quickly to onboard third parties or cut ties before risks escalate. But that speed can’t come at the expense of protection. Even one oversight could leave a company exposed without an effective due diligence process.

Reduce the third party onboarding queue with AI

The information that compliance teams need to create contextualised risk assessments isn’t confined to structured databases. It exists in open sources like news reports, press releases, blogs, and high-profile documents such as the Panama Papers. These sources can offer critical insights into a third-party’s history and assocations.

Yet many compliance teams still lack the technology to turn unstructured data into meaningful insight. Traditional tools like AML screening databases, negative news lists, and even search engines, often create more manual work. They either provide too little context or overwhelm teams with too much information and no clear insight. What compliance teams need is technology that cuts through the noise and enables them to truly understand who they’re working with in minutes.

That’s where AI comes in.

Moving third party due diligence upstream 

AI unlocks a whole new way of working.

Before, third party due diligence was pushed to the end of the onboarding process. It was time-consuming, expensive, and often only done once a company was certain it would move forward with a third party. 

Teams can now front-load due diligence with AI-powered research tools like Xapien, which can scan vast amounts of open-source data, identify risks, categorise them, assign a score, and generate a report in minutes. What once took hours or even days now happens early in the process without holding up deals.

Compliance teams get an instant view of potential risks before investing any human effort in questionnaires, manual checks or external consultancies. This not only saves time but allows teams to rethink their workflows entirely, building more robust risk assessments into the very start of the process and driving smarter decisions from day one.

One client achieved this by using Xapien to screen potential channel partners at the very start of the process, not after the sales team had already invested time and resources. Its Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) noted a fundamental change in the dynamic between compliance and the business. Instead of compliance stepping in at the end to say, “No, you can’t do that,” they now advise upfront: “Don’t waste time here—it’s not good business. Focus your efforts elsewhere.” 

This repositioned compliance from a blocker to a strategic enabler—saving time, avoiding dead ends, and building trust across the organisation.