Supplier reviews often become paperwork exercises. The better approach is to ask a few direct questions that reveal whether anything important has changed.
- What critical service, system or data does this supplier support?
- Has the supplier's access, scope or dependency changed since onboarding?
- What evidence do we have that key controls are still operating?
- Who owns the relationship when an incident or service issue happens?
- What would our fallback plan look like if the supplier failed?
These questions keep the review grounded. They help procurement, risk and business owners make a renewal decision with fewer assumptions.