Key Challenge

The third-party due diligence lifecycle was taking three times longer than preferred, preventing the company from striking business deals in a timely manner. 

Summary of Solution

Identify Roadblocks, Create Process Visibility, Increase Stakeholder Accountability
Benchmark against industry standards to set organization best practices.

  • Automating email task reminders to keep approvals on track. 
  • Biweekly stakeholder progress reports: third parties under investigation, project owner, status of diligence, approvals tracking. 

Summary of Results

Shortened due diligence cycles, which strengthened and enabled the business to make timely partnerships. 

  • Within six months of adopting Third-Party Manager and implementing progress reports, TE Connectivity realized a 25 percent decrease in the time to onboard a third party. 
  • Within 12 months and the inclusion of automated task reminders to stakeholders, the due diligence process time realized a 50 percent decrease. 

Challenge

TE Connectivity’s third-party due diligence process took three times longer than the company wanted, which impeded business efficiency. The company experienced significant delays in the approval and onboarding of third parties because it was using manual, outdated processes. The delays inhibited the company’s ability to make timely business decisions.

“It was clear that our process was taking too long. So, we needed to understand where the major delays were and how we could make this process easier for our stakeholders.”

Brian Risser, Business Partner Program Manager, TE Connectivity

TE Connectivity recognized the areas in which it needed to improve its compliance program. It then assessed the need to implement an automated solution to manage its third-party lifecycles and improve the efficiency of its due diligence process.

Solution

TE Connectivity turned to Steele’s Third-Party Manager, a third-party management solution, to pinpoint the process stall points and to deploy new, standardized procedures to minimize inefficiencies. TE Connectivity accomplished its goal by measuring task completion rates and turnaround times to identify the speed bumps in its compliance processes. When TE Connectivity
compared its findings to Third-Party Manager’s best practice completion rates for the industry, the data showed that TE Connectivity was far from the benchmark.

To remedy its due diligence inefficiencies, TE Connectivity began using Third-Party Manager’s customizable progress reports, which alert due diligence stakeholders to view the current due
diligence phase and owner and follow up with stakeholders who aren’t completing their tasks. Third-Party Manager’s customizable progress reports allowed TE Connectivity to increase
visibility and accountability throughout the organization regarding the status and ownership of tasks within the due diligence process. Third-Party Manager’s automated emails not only reminded participants about outstanding tasks in TE Connectivity’s compliance process, they also alerted stakeholders when the process was completed.

Results

Within six months of adopting biweekly progress reports, TE Connectivity decreased its third-party due diligence processing time by 25 percent. Employees indicated in feedback provided to
TE Connectivity’s compliance department that they appreciated the company’s efforts to supply them with the resources they needed to complete due diligence-related tasks. Consequently, many stakeholders now view the company’s third-party due diligence program as less burdensome than it was prior to engaging Steele’s Third-Party Manager.

Third-Party Manager enabled TE Connectivity to automate and systematize their compliance program throughout third-party relationship onboarding, monitoring, and management. By creating program efficiencies with Third-Party Manager, TE Connectivity’s Compliance Department has enabled the company to keep up with the fast- paced demands that the business requires.

Today, after engaging Steele’s Third-Party Manager, TE Connectivity reports that stakeholders are more likely to complete their tasks in a timely manner because they know others in the organization can see their progress. Therefore, the compliance process is now fulfilled in a fraction of the time than was previously possible, giving the organization the ability to move quickly on closing cases and finalizing the status of its partners.

About Steele’s Third Party Manager

Steele’s Third-Party Manager is the leading enterprise third-party management SaaS (Software as a Service) solution that enables multinational companies to systematically onboard, manage, monitor, and audit their sales channel and supply chain participants. Third-Party Manager’s flexible workflows deliver detailed analytics that help customers ensure regulatory compliance, maximize supply chain efficiency, and comply with data privacy laws and regulations.