The security of one’s company and its employees are top priorities for business owners. After experiencing an aggressive rise in cyber attacks since the pandemic began, as detailed in our blog here, a much-needed light has been shed on the security measures and risk management plans of companies. While it is vital to keep a keen focus on the cyber landscape, learning everything you can about potential business partnerships, is just as important to your business’s security and success.
For any partnership, it is a smart move to conduct a proper background check. Sure, we are all used to doing background checks on potential employees, but a business partner? Why should it be any different? A background check is the key to protecting your employees, yourself, and your business’ reputation in addition to preventing negative issues from coming to light after the fact. There are a handful of things a background check can help reveal including these two prominent aspects.
Finances – Background checks provide the opportunity to reveal any financial circumstances that may hold your partnership back and, in the future, impede your businesses success. A partner that can’t contribute to your business as promised is one thing, but ending up with your credit at risk or dealing with possible theft from your business is unacceptable.
Ethics – Your business’ reputation holds a lot of weight and the threat of a partner tarnishing that can be unnerving. What a background check or thorough vetting process can hopefully unveil a clearer view of what your business partner has been involved with in the past. Whether it is business, personal, or investment related, you can better determine if the partnership will align with your ethical standards. Getting a glimpse into their previous business dealings can reveal a lot about the type of partnership you will have.
After you have decided to conduct a background check on potential partnerships, where do you go from there? Hiring a third party to conduct a background check has many benefits and can provide expertise your business may not have. One prominent benefit is increased efficiency, as a third party will limit costs and will have the proper resources to provide quick results. When it comes to the legality surrounding background checks, there are many laws to navigate that can inhibit non experts from doing the job correctly and in a timely manner. Overall, third party background checks can be both time and cost efficient while providing accurate results.
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, “A cyber-attack incident will occur every 11 seconds in 2021. This is nearly twice the rate in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times what it was in 2016 (every 40 seconds).” Don’t let an unfamiliar business partner be another threat to worry about.
