Provide once. Reuse across engagements.
The initial thesis was focused: let vendors maintain their data and documents once, then reuse the same information wherever appropriate instead of repeating intake.
One vendor. Multiple client tenants. The same work repeated.
Certa is a client-facing third-party risk platform. Each client operates in a separate tenant and onboards vendors through its own engagements and evaluation workflows.
When the same vendor participated in another engagement, the workflow started again. Company data was entered again. The same compliance documents were uploaded again. Information already available to Certa could not be reused as a persistent vendor resource.
A broader supplier-side product
Reuse solved the immediate workflow problem. Research showed that the vendor side could also receive standalone value—and create a path to monetization.
Reuse
Carry data and documents across engagements.
Trust center
Share compliance posture during evaluation.
Self-audit
Assess readiness before an evaluation.
Research narrowed the opportunity to three pillars
I began by understanding the repeated-submission problem and what value a dedicated supplier experience could create. The research produced one product vision with three connected jobs.
Reuse
Maintain vendor documents and data once, then reuse them across eligible engagements.
Trust center
Give vendors a shareable view of their documents and compliance posture during evaluation.
Self-audit
Help vendors assess their compliance posture and identify gaps before evaluation.
Make the complete vision tangible
I built an end-to-end clickable prototype covering all three pillars. It gave the internal leadership team a complete product experience to evaluate—not a collection of disconnected feature ideas.
Three pillars. One portal.
The concept brought reusable data, a shareable trust center and compliance self-audit into one supplier experience. Leadership approved the direction, moving the work into client-specific pilot discovery.
Reusable dataDocument managementShareable trust centerSelf-auditCompany-data prefill
Find a pilot without changing client operations
After leadership approved the complete concept, I interviewed stakeholders across four client environments. I mapped each onboarding flow, tested how visible the repeated-upload problem was and looked for a pilot where the client-side process could remain intact.
Current workflow
Understand how each client created engagements, onboarded vendors and collected documents.
Mixed awareness
Some clients knew vendors were repeating work; others had not heard the problem directly.
Pilot fit
Choose a manual, document-heavy environment where reuse could be tested with minimal change.
Pilot constraint
Client tenant
Create engagement → onboard vendor → run evaluation
No change
Vendor side
Enter through supplier portal → confirm and manage reusable information
Minimal change
Test the foundation first: reuse
The approved product vision contained three pillars. The pilot deliberately contained one. Data reuse—and the separate supplier portal required to support it—was the foundation that needed to work before adding the trust center or self-audit.
Three pillars
The leadership-approved concept established the long-term supplier experience.
ReuseTrust centerSelf-audit
Reuse only
A focused supplier portal for providing, managing and reusing vendor data and documents—with no change to the client workflow.
Separate portalReusable dataMinimal workflow change
Client creates engagement
→
Vendor enters portal
→
Existing data loads
→
Vendor confirms or updates
→
Information is reused
From broad problem to a testable first version
Product definition
Turned repeated vendor intake into a three-pillar supplier product.
Leadership alignment
Built the complete prototype and secured approval for the direction.
Pilot selection
Compared four client environments and chose the strongest workflow fit.
Focused pilot
Built the reuse-only pilot version with minimal workflow disruption.
Scope boundary: reuse was included in the pilot version. The trust center and self-audit remained part of the approved complete-product direction.