Published on January 28, 2021
A third-party risk assessment analyses the risk that third-party vendors and suppliers pose to an organisation. At Tata Sky, the supply chain management (SCM) team leads a strategic initiative called the ‘Third-Party Due Diligence’ programme. Through this practice, the company identifies, assesses, and mitigates potential risks presented during the lifecycle of a third-party relationship from the exploration stage to the procurement process. In September 2020, the Tata Group Ethics Office had circulated a practice from the EDGE Portal on ‘Efficient Third-Party Due Diligence’ at Tata Sky. Thereafter, Infiniti Retail approached Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG) to know more about the practice to explore the feasibility of replicating it.
During a TBExG-facilitated best practices sharing session, on October 16, 2020, Arun Kumar, Senior VP, Supply Chain Services, and Anil Dalvi, General Manager, from Tata Sky, explained in detail their SCM framework and objectives, automations such as the demand planning tool, last mile tracker, vendor portal, analytical tool and e-way bill tool and two levels of audit as part of the vendor due diligence process. The practice has been developed and divided in four steps — collection, identification, review and monitor. The vendor has to add all these details and go through more than 120 checkpoints. This gives a complete assessment of the risk while onboarding a vendor. The process does not stop after onboarding of the vendor, it continues with periodical monitoring.
Infiniti Retail found the practices at Tata Sky useful in identifying suitable vendors. The mechanism is expected to bring in efficiency and audit trail in the current process.
Participant Speak
This best practice sharing by Tata Sky has inspired the Own Label service team at Infiniti Retail to develop a similar vendor manager system. The system is expected to perform as a repository for the service provider scouting activity, selection process of service provider, due diligence before onboarding, audit trail for the entire activity and details for the offboarding as and when it happens. Infiniti retail is now interacting with the Tata Sky due diligence partner for setting up the system. Once the expected scope of work is agreed along with the commercials, the process is expected to get implemented at Infiniti Retail
Jigar Gokani – Head, Own Label, Infiniti Retail