Carrying out due diligence requires significant expertise and experience to conduct to an acceptable standard. This can be handled internally by members of staff but runs the risk of having bias, lack of training, or time pressures curtail your work. This can also pull professionals away from projects and initiatives that result in a compound loss for your business.
At a minimum, these should be conducted in full before any major business decision with a third party, such as an acquisition or merger, to protect your current or future intellectual property, and to safeguard your company’s reputation.
However, it is important to recognise that it is not the only time an investigation may be undertaken. These can also be deployed to confirm the integrity of your employees, suppliers, contractors or colleagues. This can be essential for teams or professionals that have a high degree of autonomy and report back from clients without any insight or input from yourself or management.
Simply put, if your employees spend a lot of time on the road, a due diligence check may quickly move from a potential choice to a near necessity. However, it can be incredibly difficult to get a trained, objective perspective on the current state of play if you are depending on your internal teams for feedback and insight.
This makes hiring or sourcing feedback from an investigator highly useful.