Enterprise buyers send SIG, CAIQ, and custom vendor questionnaires before they'll sign a contract. We draft accurate, audit-consistent answers — fast — so your deal doesn't stall.
A security questionnaire is a structured set of questions that enterprise buyers send to vendors to assess their information security posture before approving a procurement. Common formats include the SIG (Standardised Information Gathering) questionnaire, the CAIQ (Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire) for cloud providers, and bespoke questionnaires created by the buyer's security or legal team. A full SIG has over 1,000 questions across 19 risk domains.
A £300,000 enterprise deal arrives. The buyer's security team sends you a 900-question SIG questionnaire. You need to respond within 10 business days or the deal goes on hold. Your CTO estimates it will take three weeks of engineer time to complete it accurately. Your sales team is panicking. Your engineers don't want to touch it.
This is one of the most common deal-blockers for AI startups in enterprise sales. And the damage compounds: every questionnaire you answer ad hoc becomes a liability — inconsistent answers across questionnaires create contradictions that diligent buyers will find.
ProtectifyAI drafts your questionnaire responses accurately, consistently, and fast. We build an answer bank mapped to your actual security posture — so every future questionnaire takes days, not weeks.
The most common enterprise vendor risk assessment. Full SIG: 1,000+ questions across 19 domains. SIG Lite: shorter version for lower-risk vendors.
Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire — the standard for cloud provider security assessments. Aligned to the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix.
Many enterprise buyers (banks, insurance companies, US government contractors) send their own security questionnaires. We handle these too.
Enterprise buyers increasingly include AI governance sections in their questionnaires — covering model transparency, bias assessment, training data, and EU AI Act compliance.
For organisations with an existing answer bank and documented security posture: 3–5 business days for a full SIG questionnaire.
For first-time questionnaire responses requiring answer bank creation: 5–10 business days, depending on questionnaire complexity and the availability of your engineering team for factual queries.
Rush responses (24–48 hours) are possible for urgent deals — speak to us in your working session.
The 36-point checklist we use before responding to any enterprise security questionnaire — covering pre-response review, answer consistency, sensitive question flags, certification evidence, and submission format. Enter your email to receive it.
Outcome-based pricing. Fixed fee per questionnaire engagement or monthly retainer for ongoing support.
The best way to make questionnaires fast and easy is to have a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification. Most questions answer themselves. Ask us about bundling questionnaire support with implementation.
A security questionnaire is a structured set of questions that enterprise buyers send to vendors before approving a procurement. The most common formats are the SIG (Standardised Information Gathering), CAIQ (for cloud providers), and custom questionnaires from large enterprise and regulated-sector buyers. A full SIG questionnaire has over 1,000 questions across 19 risk domains.
Without a prepared answer bank, a full SIG questionnaire typically takes 2–6 weeks of engineering and management time. With ProtectifyAI managing the response, the same questionnaire takes 3–5 business days from a prepared answer bank, or 5–10 business days for a first-time response requiring answer bank creation.
The SIG (Standardised Information Gathering) questionnaire is the most common enterprise vendor risk assessment tool, created by Shared Assessments. It covers 19 risk domains including information security, cloud services, data privacy, business continuity, and (in recent versions) AI governance. The full SIG has over 1,000 questions; the SIG Lite is a shorter version used for lower-risk vendors.
Not necessarily — but having a certification dramatically accelerates questionnaire responses. Certification answers dozens of questions automatically and signals to the buyer's security team that your controls have been independently validated. For AI startups in active enterprise sales, we typically recommend pursuing certification alongside questionnaire support for maximum deal velocity.
Enterprise buyers often follow up with clarifying questions or schedule a customer security call (sometimes called a security review call or vendor security review). ProtectifyAI manages follow-up questions and can join or lead customer security calls on your behalf — ensuring your answers are consistent and your team doesn't need to become security experts.
Yes. Enterprise buyers increasingly include AI-specific sections in their questionnaires covering model transparency, training data, bias assessment, EU AI Act compliance, and AI governance frameworks. These are some of the hardest questions for AI startups to answer accurately — and getting them wrong can stall deals or create legal exposure. ProtectifyAI drafts AI governance answers that are accurate, proportionate, and consistent with your technical reality.
We'll scope the response, identify the hard questions, and tell you exactly how we'd handle it. 45 minutes.
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