Beyond the Gate: Scaling TPRM in an AI-Driven Ecosystem

In late 2022, during the Global Resilience Federation (GRF) Summit, a group of us from the Consumer Packaged Goods CPG) sector formed a working group to confront a shared reality. While our peers in Finance or Tech were managing digital assets, we were managing a physical-digital hybrid: a sprawling ecosystem where a cyber incident at a tier-one logistics provider or a "mom-and-pop" tomato farmer could equally halt our operations.

By 2022, 85% of businesses viewed Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) as a strategic priority, yet most of us were still treating it as a "gate" in the procurement process³. Today, in 2025, we have moved from being gatekeepers to data orchestrators, turning a "luck-based" strategy into one that recently earned our team a standing ovation from the board.

The Problem: The Static "Gate" vs. Dynamic Risk

In 2022, our sector relied on an outdated model that failed to account for the speed of modern threats:

• The Point-in-Time Trap: We used annual surveys and static contracts that were rarely touched until renewal, leaving us blind to changing vendor scopes.

• Single-Source Fragility: Within CPG, we often had "single-source" suppliers for critical ingredients or packaging with no backup or contingency plans.

• The Visibility Gap: Roughly 59% of practitioners felt their technology provided nowhere near the visibility needed to manage risk.

• Luck as a Strategy: A staggering 55% of respondents admitted it was luck, rather than oversight, that helped them avoid major disruptions during the pandemic.

  
  

The Shift: Cross-Functional Orchestration

Coming out of the GRF, we realized that Cybersecurity couldn't solve this in a vacuum. We needed to "talk the language of the business" and partner with Procurement, Legal, and Audit.

1. Modular Speed with OneTrust

To show the board immediate results, we didn't wait for a perfect system. We implemented OneTrust to automate the "business-as-usual" (BAU) tasks. By automating approximately 58% of TPRM tasks, we freed our team to focus on high-impact human review. This shifted our assessment turnaround from weeks to a 10-day average.

2. The DataBricks Engine

We put our "eggs in one basket" by building a live monitoring view in DataBricks. We ingested:

• Procurement Data: Identifying "single-source" spend and critical supply chain chokepoints.

• Legal Data: Mapping notification requirements for incidents across thousands of contracts.

• Operational Data: Understanding how third and fourth parties interact to deliver goods to our clients.

  
  

3. Active Monitoring with Black Kite

To handle the diverse CPG ecosystem, we partnered with Black Kite. This allowed us to triage our partners using:

• Ransomware and Data Breach Scores: Moving away from arbitrary grades to quantifiable, evidence-based risk metrics.

• Tiered Oversight: We applied "Active Monitoring" to our critical logistics and tier-one partners, while using a "light-touch" scoring model for smaller, mom-and-pop providers.

  
  

The 2025 Standing Ovation

When we presented our Live Monitoring View to the board in 2025, the reaction was transformative. For the first time, we didn't show them a spreadsheet of "targets"; we showed them resilience.

We could demonstrate exactly where our risks sat, which vendors had triggered alerts, and how our backup suppliers were positioned to take over. The board's standing ovation wasn't just for the tech, it was for the clarity. We had finally moved TPRM from an "insurance cost" to a competitive advantage in a volatile market.

CPG Sector: 2022 vs. 2025 Comparison

Feature	2022 (Gatekeeper Model)	2025 (Orchestration Model)
Strategy	Tactical "fixes" and point-in-time checks	Enterprise-wide strategic resilience
Visibility	59% dissatisfied with data visibility	Real-time dashboards (DataBricks/Black Kite)
Governance	Siloed between procurement and security	Unified framework with clear roles/responsibilities
ESG Focus	23% assessing environmental risk	50%+ of large CPG firms assessing full ESG

References

• KPMG International (2022): Third-Party Risk Management Outlook 2022. Focus on CPG and Retail sector benchmarks

• Black Kite Risk Methodology: Standards-based quantification of ransomware susceptibility and financial risk.

• OneTrust 2025 Insights: Data on the shift from manual assessments to automated, AI-assisted risk workflows.