What is it?
Security review in SaaS procurement means the security, privacy and compliance work that happens as part of buying a SaaS product — intake, assessment, decision and record-keeping. Done well, it is a supported step in the procurement process. Done poorly, it is a bottleneck buyers work around.
Why does it matter?
Security review is where procurement either builds trust with the business or loses it. Slow, opaque reviews teach buyers to introduce vendors without telling the review team — the opposite of what a due diligence programme is supposed to achieve. Fast, transparent reviews create the conditions for the business to bring vendors forward willingly.
Common challenges
- Reviews start too late — after a contract is negotiated, when the buyer is already committed.
- No standard requirement set, so every reviewer asks slightly different things.
- Buyer and reviewer work in different tools, with progress hidden from each other.
- Findings are never linked back to the eventual decision.
- No tiering — a low-risk marketing tool is reviewed with the same depth as a payroll platform.
Best practice
An integrated review process has four properties:
- Early intake — a lightweight form captures the vendor and data context before serious buyer commitment.
- Tiering — intake determines review depth; not every vendor needs a full assessment.
- Shared workspace — buyer, reviewer and supplier can see the same request, the same evidence and the same status.
- Traceable decision — the assessment output states the decision, the reasoning and the evidence behind it, and is retrievable later.
The measure of a good process is not "did we catch every risk?" It is"did the business come to us early, and were we ready?"
How Governly supports this area
Governly is designed around this collaboration model: the customer defines requirements, the supplier submits evidence, Governly maps evidence to requirements, and the assessment output is versioned and shareable. Suppliers see a neutral collaboration surface; buyers and reviewers see the full picture.