Supplier contractual terms delivered ready to insert.
Speeki OnBoard™ helps you with the final part of your supplier qualification process: Contracting.
Speeki OnBoard™ is a supplier contracting solution and is part of the suite of products that makes up Speeki's supply chain selection, qualification and due diligence solution.
Speeki OnBoard™ takes all the information, knowledge, and risks identified in your qualification and due diligence process for a particular supplier and prepares a set of contractual provisions that can be incorporated into your supplier contract.
What is Speeki OnBoard™?
Speeki OnBoard™ is a vendor onboarding software solution. Speeki provides you with a set of terms that you can include in your supplier contracts. Our proposed terms are drafted specifically for the supplier and based on all the information that has been obtained from the qualification and ESG due diligence process.
Most companies do not adjust their 'standard' boilerplate language in their supplier contracts even if they identify gaps in the supplier's ESG and Sustainability practices. Speeki believes this is a mistake. If you have identified gaps in the supplier programme and you want them to make changes, then building it into the contract is the first step. Then you can contractually mandate certain requirements with your supplier and hold them accountable to deliver on your expectations.
Is Speeki OnBoard™ acting as your supply chain counsel?
No. We are not acting as your counsel, but we do provide an addendum with contractual clauses through our vendor onboarding software. We are not acting as your lawyer or your law firm and we are not providing legal advice. That obligation remains with you and you need to make sure that the clauses are right for your supplier contract and that they are inserted and integrated correctly.
Speeki OnBoard™ drafts an addendum for you based on the risks identified in the supplier's ESG and Sustainability initiatives. While the addendum is reviewed by an experienced and trained attorney who has expertise in ESG and Sustainability risks in the supply chain, we are not providing legal advice.
Why are specific clauses addressing these risks necessary in my supplier contracts?
E.g. We would like to see [Supplier] obtain certification for its health and safety programme within two years
[Supplier] is required to track its carbon usage and report to us if this exceeds [x] metric tons in any given 6-month period.
E.g. [Supplier] needs to reduce the release of toxins into surrounding water by 20% within 6 months.
[Supplier] must implement a whistleblowing programme across all its operations within 12 months to allow anonymous and independent review of whistleblower complaints.
E.g. The [Supplier] agrees to an audit of interactions with [Country] government departments and officials at least annually.
[Supplier] agrees to provide advance notice of any investigations or allegations of misconduct within 7 days of receipt and allows us to review documentation concerning our involvement in any such allegation.
What are some of the requirements that may be covered in a Speeki Onboard™ addendum?
Bribery and corruption
Failure to manage bribery and corruption risks can lead to significant consequences, such as large fines, reputational damage, and internal and external investigations – just to name a few. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to obtain a certification of the management system, give access to certain reports or awareness of investigations or allegations of misconduct.
Whistleblowing
Failure to provide whistleblowing support can lead not only to fines and debarments from public procurement, but also to failures with your other compliance programmes that need the feedback from reporters. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to implement an anonymous whistleblowing solution, obtain an ISO 37002 certification of their programme, give access to certain reports or awareness of investigations or allegations of misconduct that concern your business.
Diversity, equity and inclusion
Failure to manage diversity, equity and inclusion risks can lead to reputational damage and difficulty in hiring and retaining staff. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to report to you at least annually their key diversity metrics so that you can include such metrics in your ESG reporting or to confirm their applicability to certain benefits.
Human rights and modern-day slavery
Failure to manage human rights risks can lead to reputational damage, significant fines, debarments from public procurement, and internal and external investigations. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to conduct annual audits of pay rates, overtime, and workplace conditions by an independent third party. Such audits may be required to be provided to you after completion without redaction.
Compliance
Effective compliance programmes protect business and the return on investment could be significant, helping to avoid waste, fraud, abuse, discrimination, and many other practices that disrupt operations and put a company at risk. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to follow certain compliance standards (like ISO 37301) or to have a code of conduct in place (with verifiable training records). The addendum may specify certain executive roles to be responsible for compliance and that certain levels of staffing and seniority are maintained.
Supply chain and partner management
Supply chain and partner management is essential for the efficient and sustainable running of any business that uses third parties to either source or distribute its products and services. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to have a supplier qualification and due diligence system and provide details of subcontractors to you in advance along with their qualification and onboarding documentation.
Health and safety
A lack of consideration for health and safety can increase absenteeism and negligence claims, affecting workplace productivity and morale. It may also lead to a supplier's inability to produce products and services for you. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to obtain a certification of the safety management system, give access to certain reports or awareness of investigations or allegations of misconduct.
Data privacy and information security
The protection and access of an individual’s private data is growing in importance as new international laws come into effect. Your suppliers' Speeki OnBoard™ addendum may require the company to obtain a privacy analysis and to provide that annually and to undertake certification of their systems according to ISO 27001.
Using Speeki OnBoard™ addendums rather than your own standard boilerplate.
Using Speeki’s vendor onboarding software adds significant value to your contracting process. It offers far more value than relying on standard boilerplate language typically included in supplier contracts, which often contain broad clauses that are 'never looked at.'
Speeki OnBoard™ aims to change the way supplier contracting is done. It transforms the traditional vendor onboarding process by incorporating a robust feature that offers background checks for vendors. Speeki OnBoard™ ensures that all potential suppliers undergo thorough vetting, enhancing security and compliance from the very beginning.
Just like in the 'old days', Speeki OnBoard™ makes every contract with your supplier unique. It needs to be unique because each supplier is different, and each supplier's risk is different. We believe that supplier contracts should be a risk management tool.
While standard templates are fine for some low-risk suppliers, they are unlikely to suffice for high- or medium-risk suppliers. To shift knowledge, responsibility, and accountability to the supplier, you need very clear contract terms.
The more specific you can be with your ESG and Sustainability contract terms, the more value you can gain from your suppliers' adherence to those terms. General 'do good' statements are no longer useful when you are likely to be responsible for their actions.
Relying on a supplier to manage ESG 'their way' is a significant risk. Outline your expectations and use your contract to hold them accountable to comply with those terms. Their risk reduces accordingly, as does yours.
You have high expectations and reporting obligations to stakeholders and regulators. Your suppliers need to meet your standards and tolerance for risk, not their own. Demand through contract that these standards are met.
The best contracts are those that reflect these elements. Your suppliers should support your ESG and Sustainability programmes. They are, after all, an essential part of the process to which you are beholden. The more you can improve supplier ESG, the more you can strengthen your own ESG.
With ESG reporting obligations increasing, more data will need to be submitted by your suppliers. From Scope 3 emissions to diversity metrics and safety accident reporting, you will need to require suppliers to provide data regularly.
Using Speeki OnBoard™ supercharges your supplier contracts
Easily map the results of your qualification, assessment, and due diligence steps to your contracts, moving your 'findings' into actionable requirements for your supplier.
Your Speeki OnBoard™ addendum will make your legal contracts with each supplier an active part of your risk management system, not just a defensive mechanism for dispute resolution.
Use your Speeki OnBoard™ addendum to enhance your ESG reporting efforts by securing a flow of essential contracted data from your supplier that can be tracked and easily 'demanded'. Increasingly, data will be needed from your suppliers for your own reporting.
Building better, more intelligent contracts with your supplier will establish a common value of managing risk on both sides. It will help avoid disputes and set out roles and responsibilities with respect to ESG and Sustainability more clearly.
Link the obligations from your Speeki OnBoard™ addendums with your ongoing monitoring, measuring, and audit programmes. Validate compliance with your contracts easily using Speeki Partner Integrity™ audits.
Speeki vendor onboarding software solutions are not intended to replace your in-house counsel or external lawyers. They are designed to provide a simple way to integrate requirements into your contracts with a supplier.
Make your supplier contracts more valuable with actionable requirements and a clear setting of expectations. Your suppliers will appreciate seeing precisely what they need to do.
Speeki OnBoard™ features
Reviewed by legal professionals.
The Speeki OnBoard™ addendums prepared by Speeki have been reviewed by legally trained professionals, some of whom have many years of in-house experience.
Fixed price and substantially less than outside lawyers.
Our solutions are offered at a set price per addendum. Purchased in packages (minimum 10), you know the exact cost and can build this into your supplier onboarding expenses. Costs are significantly lower than hiring outside counsel.
Designed specifically for each supplier.
More than just templates, the addendums are tailored for each supplier based on their specific circumstances and how they have proceeded through your qualification and due diligence process.
You control the ultimate final version.
While Speeki provides you with a ready-to-use Speeki OnBoard™ addendum for your supplier contract, you retain control over the final version.
Not too little and not too much.
The Speeki OnBoard™ addendums are produced in MS Word, allowing you to edit them as needed. You can easily scale down our drafting to suit specific supplier needs. We aim to keep the addendums under two pages, clearly laid out and written in simple language.
Standalone versions for existing contracts and suppliers.
Speeki’s vendor onboarding software can also be used for standalone agreements with your suppliers. If a separate contract is preferred, it can be drafted and provided for an additional fee.
Integration with your templates.
The Speeki OnBoard™ addendum templates are designed with the right wording to seamlessly integrate into your existing supplier agreements. They can be referred to as an 'ESG and Sustainability addendum' or any other suitable term.
Simple language clauses.
At Speeki, we pride ourselves on writing clauses in simple terms that suppliers can easily understand. This is especially important for SMB suppliers and those without in-house legal counsel.
Why do your supplier contracts need more focus on ESG and Sustainability issues?
ESG and Sustainability is the leading issue facing the supply chain today: managing risk.
ESG and Sustainability are now critical in supply chain management. Companies are held accountable for their suppliers' practices, making clear contracts essential to manage risks and ensure compliance.
Legislators, the community, and your customers hold you responsible for your suppliers.
Your customers don’t see the difference between your role and that of your supply chain. They look to you for answers. Trying to shift responsibility in the market and media is pointless. Actively managing risk in advance should be your focus.
You need suppliers as much as they need you. Their data becomes your data.
The chances are that, going forward, you will need a lot of data from your suppliers. Right now, there is likely no legal obligation for them to provide it. Better contracts, better obligations, better requirements, and better enforcement are part of the solution to gaining better data from your suppliers.
Managing supplier risk is a mixture of knowledge, assessment, and contractual obligations.
Contracts have been a great shield over the years. However, they are a sword just as much as they are a shield. Properly drafted, supplier contracts can do both. While templates and removing lawyers from simple negotiations is useful, better supplier contracts, more tailored to manage specific risks, are needed for the future.
You may need to rely on those contracts to enforce requirements – they need to be clear.
In the new world of ESG and Sustainability, you will need to make expectations very clear to your suppliers. Differences in size, legal obligations, reporting obligations, and risk tolerance will influence what each party to the contract is expecting.
As companies push more obligations to their suppliers, these need to be accurately described in contracts.
Best practice is to set out expectations clearly for both parties in their contracts. While this is standard practice, the use of templates has led to less specific guidance for suppliers on customer expectations.
Speeki OnBoard™ FAQs
How much does it cost?
Speeki charges a flat fee for each Speeki OnBoard™ addendum purchased in packs of 10 paid in advance.
How long does it take to prepare?
Typically overnight or the next business day.
Does Speeki help to negotiate the addendum?
We do not get involved in the negotiation of the addendum.
How does Speeki decide what to include in the addendum?
We are looking for things that the supplier can do to improve their ESG and Ssustainability practices that by implementing or improving, would benefit you and your risk levels.
Can we change the addendum after being provided by Speeki?
Yes, you are welcome to make changes or adjust as you see fit.
Can you use my addendum template?
Yes. We will look at how to include your structure in a template addendum.
What does Speeki need in order to prepare the addendum?
We focus on inputs from you, as well as the results (if any) from Speeki Trust™ background checks or Speeki Qualify™ assessments that the supplier may have completed.
What happens if the supplier refuses to sign or negotiate?
Negotiate, accept defeat, or find an alternative supplier.
How does Speeki OnBoard™ help various groups in the company?
Speeki OnBoard™ streamlines the supplier contracting process, saving time by providing ready-to-use contractual clauses tailored to identified ESG risks, ensuring more efficient supplier onboarding and compliance management.
It reduces the workload of in-house counsel by providing contract-ready clauses, enabling them to focus on higher-level legal review while ensuring suppliers are held accountable for their ESG commitments.
Speeki OnBoard™ strengthens risk management by incorporating specific ESG requirements directly into supplier contracts, ensuring continuous compliance and minimizing potential legal and reputational risks.
It ensures that supplier contracts align with the company’s ESG and Sustainability goals, facilitating easier tracking of progress and compliance, and supporting broader sustainability reporting efforts.
Speeki OnBoard™ mitigates financial risks associated with non-compliance by suppliers, helping to avoid fines, disruptions, and potential financial liabilities through clear contractual obligations.
Seal the deal with smarter supplier contracts
Streamline your supplier contracts by embedding ESG requirements into clear, actionable terms, ensuring compliance, accountability, and stronger partnerships every step of the way.
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