I had three vendor security forms drop into my inbox this morning. Just what I wanted to mull over with my coffee. A few months ago, it was just a couple per week. Last year? Maybe once per month. So that got me thinking about how third-party risk landscape isn’t just growing, it’s exploding.

I have been in the IT and contract management industry for 30+ years in, and I’m seeing a troubling trend: as businesses become more interconnected, security is only as strong as the weakest vendor. The Identity Theft Resource Center tracked 3,205 data compromises last year, and a staggering 98% of organizations worldwide have integrations with at least one third-party vendor that has been breached in the last two years.

98% … That’s mind boggling.

When Every Vendor Becomes a Risk Vector If you’re a mid-sized business, you might have found yourself in the not-so-sweet “sweet spot”. Large enough to have dozens to hundreds of vendors, but without a massive security operations teams of enterprise organizations. You can’t scale without adding headcount, but the compliance burden is getting heavier without relief.

According to Vanta’s State of Trust Report, 33% of global business and IT leaders cite lack of staffing as the top blocker to proving security externally. Manual processes for vendor management consume countless hours. Security questionnaires pile up. Contract reviews bottleneck with legal. Compliance requirements multiply.

The Connection Between Contracts & Security

If you’re like many organizations, you might be treating contract management and third-party risk as separate disciplines. I would argue that this creates dangerous blind spots.

Your contracts establish the security expectations, requirements, and liabilities for every vendor relationship. If these documents are in various repositories or email inboxes, you lose visibility into your risk exposure. Without a centralized system, you can’t quickly answer critical questions during a security incident:

• Which vendors have access to our sensitive data?

• What security controls did they contractually agree to implement?

• When was their last security assessment scheduled?

• Are they required to notify us of breaches within 24 hours?

The answers often arrive too late.

The Missing Piece

So if they aren’t adding headcount to fix the problem, what are they doing? They’re turning to automation.

They’re turning to full Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) systems. A single source of truth for vendor relationships. Every security requirement becomes trackable. Renewal dates trigger automatic assessment reminders. Security provisions can be standardized across vendor tiers based on risk profiles.

This approach transforms vendor management from a reactive scramble into a proactive, strategic function.

Cross-Functional Alignment Makes the Difference

Effective third-party risk management requires collaboration across departments. Legal needs visibility into security requirements. Procurement needs to understand compliance implications. Security teams need access to contractual obligations. Finance needs to evaluate liability and indemnification provisions.

IF you don’t have a unified system, these stakeholders operate with fragmented information. I’ve seen organizations where security has one view of vendor risk, legal has another, and operations has a third. The result is blind spots that lead to duplicated effort and while still missing obligations.

If you standardize your contract management process, those silos dissolve. Everyone works from the same information, updated in real-time.

From Paper Chasing to Strategy

The organizations thriving amid increasing third-party risks have made a fundamental shift in their approach. They’ve transformed contract management from an administrative function into a strategic asset.

Automated routine tasks mean the team is focusing on delivering the best ROI: strategic risk assessment, relationship management, and continuous improvement. Less time previously spent hunting down documents and more time analyzing risks and strengthening governance.

The best part is it it doesn’t require a massive budget. There are CLM platforms that can deliver enterprise capability at entry-level pricing so vendor governance is affordable for mid-sized businesses.

Building Your Foundation

If your organization is struggling with the growing burden of third-party risk management, start by centralizing your contract information. Create visibility across departments. Standardize your security requirements by vendor category. Automate renewal notifications and assessment schedules.

Just using these foundational steps will enable you to scale your third-party relationships without proportionally scaling your team or accepting increased risk.

Remember: your vendors’ security problems are now yours. Put the right processes and tools in place to manage that expanding exposure. The organizations that thrive will be those that can automate the administrative aspects of third-party risk, enabling their teams to focus on strategic risk management rather than document chase.

Your security ecosystem extends far beyond your walls. Make sure you have the visibility to protect it.