{"id":22439,"date":"2025-10-07T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T08:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustpair.com\/blog\/vendor-data-cleaning-varun-kukreja-interview\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T09:44:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T09:44:06","slug":"vendor-data-cleaning-varun-kukreja-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustpair.com\/gb\/blog\/vendor-data-cleaning-varun-kukreja-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Vendor Data Cleaning: Expert Insights from Varun Kukreja"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our latest conversation, we spoke with Varun Kukreja<\/a>, Associate Director of Solutions Engineering at Zycus<\/strong>, to explore the critical role vendor data quality plays in driving successful business initiatives. Drawing on years of experience supporting global procurement transformation projects, Varun shares how accurate, well-maintained vendor data can be the catalyst for strategic business projects – enabling better compliance, streamlined operations, and reduced fraud risks.<\/p>\n

He also sheds light on the direct link between data accuracy and risk reduction, highlighting how cleaner vendor records lead to greater efficiency, fewer payment errors, and smoother cross-team collaboration. Read on for practical steps, real-world examples, and actionable advice to help your organization turn vendor data quality into a strategic advantage.<\/p>\n

1. Could you start by presenting yourself, your role at Zykus and your experience in terms of vendor data management and procurement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My name is Varun Kukreja. I’m the Associate Director for Solutions Engineering at Zycus, where I\u2019ve worked for 14 years. During this time, I\u2019ve been involved in procurement transformation projects<\/a> covering supplier data management, supplier onboarding, and supplier risk profiling. Over the years, I\u2019ve worked with several clients at different stages of these challenges.<\/p>\n

2. What are the most common risks you\u2019ve seen from unclean, incomplete, or obsolete vendor data?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest risk comes in compliance. If procurement spend isn\u2019t based on proper, clean data, it can quickly lead to non-compliance.<\/p>\n

Imagine a situation where a preferred vendor for a certain category appears under two names in the system. If the data isn\u2019t deduplicated, there\u2019s a high chance a purchase goes through the non-preferred channel simply because of duplicate entries. From my perspective, compliance faces the biggest risk from poorly maintained data.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the audit. Disparate or duplicated data across systems causes major concerns, often showing up as red flags during audit checks.<\/p>\n

Operationally, there are risks around supplier onboarding and payments. If payment or bank details aren\u2019t validated against supplier records, you\u2019re exposing the business to errors and potentially losing money.<\/p>\n

So broadly, I see three main categories of risk from unmanaged data: compliance, audit, and operations.<\/p>\n

3. Based on your experience, what links do you see between vendor data quality and fraud prevention?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fraud often hides in the gaps, especially in duplicate records or inconsistent naming conventions for the same supplier. If one person creates a supplier under one taxonomy and another person can\u2019t find it, they might create a duplicate under a different name. That gap in the data is a major link between poor data quality and fraud risk.<\/p>\n

The other issue is that vendor data is often treated as static. But it actually evolves, for example, supplier banking details change over time. If those changes aren\u2019t monitored, they create an opening for fraud.<\/p>\n

These two are tightly linked. That\u2019s why I always tell clients: clean data isn\u2019t a one-time project. It\u2019s dynamic and needs continuous monitoring to maintain quality.<\/p>\n

4. When data is obsolete, someone often needs to contact suppliers to get the correct information. Do many of your clients waste time manually correcting obsolete data before making payments?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the data isn’t clean initially, it’s indeed going to lead to delays and frictions in the payment chain and the vendor onboarding process. <\/a>Having your vendor data clean from the get-go is a huge efficiency gain, with real dollar value.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many clients waste significant time manually correcting obsolete data, and the impact goes far beyond vendor management. When supplier data isn\u2019t clean, every stage of the procurement cycle suffers,from onboarding vendors, to sourcing, to analyzing spend and identifying savings opportunities. Instead of focusing on strategic or tactical procurement, teams get stuck chasing and correcting outdated information. Clean, reliable data therefore creates efficiency gains across the board, with a ripple effect that touches the entire payment and sourcing process.<\/p>\n

5. In recent years, have you seen vendor data accuracy become more of a focus for organizations? Is it becoming more important for your clients and prospects?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely. There was a time when vendor data management and data quality were seen largely as IT responsibilities, a back-office concern. Today, they have become boardroom priorities.<\/p>\n

The reason is clear: the last five to six years have brought constant uncertainty. First came the pandemic, followed by geopolitical conflicts and other disruptions that severely impacted supply chains. In this context, data quality is more critical than ever.<\/p>\n

The need for supply chain resilience has pushed data quality to the top of the agenda. Only with clean, reliable data can companies pursue automation, generate trustworthy analytics, and gain a competitive edge.<\/p>\n

Generative AI is also part of this shift. At Zycus, we\u2019re proud to be pioneers in AI and generative AI. But the insights AI delivers are only as good as the data it learns from. If the underlying data is confusing or inconsistent, it risks producing inaccurate or misleading outputs, even hallucinations.<\/p>\n

So yes, in recent years we\u2019ve seen vendor data accuracy rise dramatically in importance, gaining recognition as a true strategic priority.<\/p>\n

Learn how you can clean your vendor data in our 7 step roadmap!<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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