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Across a global survey of 2,805 organisations, only 18% report being very confident in the accuracy of the safety data their suppliers have reported to them. The figure comes from the Achilles Global Supplier Risk and Sustainability Survey 2026 and describes a confidence problem that runs across construction, energy, manufacturing, transport, and the public sector.
The cause sits in the shape of the exchange itself. Three properties of how supplier data travels today explain the low confidence:
- Static delivery. A supplier answers a customer’s request with the most accurate document available at the moment of sending, and the document stops changing once it leaves the supplier’s system.
- Separation from the source. The customer holds a copy that has separated from the record that produced it, with no operational path back to the source.
- Private confidence. Whatever confidence the supplier has in the data at the point of sending stays with the supplier; the customer holds something that looks like the answer, with no operational way to confirm that it still is.
The verification gap in attached documents
When supplier data travels to a customer as an attached document, the customer holds a static copy. The document offers no path back to the source that produced it. Its currency, its provenance, and its change history all live in the supplier’s systems, beyond the customer’s reach.
These are properties of the exchange shape, not failings of any supplier or customer. An attached file delivers its contents at the moment of sending. The operational properties that would allow a receiving party to verify those contents live in the supplier’s source system, accessible to the supplier but to no one downstream.
The operational consequences sit with the customer. The document has to be relied on without verification at the point of use. Any subsequent question about its accuracy generates another email, another delay, and another copy that begins to drift the moment it lands in the customer’s inbox. By the time the customer has confirmed the version is still current, the moment that prompted the question has often passed.
A published record, retrieved on demand
The alternative shape begins on the supplier side. The supplier publishes the same product information once, as a structured product record maintained in their own system. The record is shaped around the supplier’s own data: identifiers, materials, certifications, and custom attributes that match how the catalogue is already organised. Maintenance happens in one place, on the supplier’s terms, as part of the work the supplier already does for its own operations.
The customer side begins when the customer needs the information. The customer retrieves the record from the supplier’s maintained copy at the point of use, through their own systems (ERP, business intelligence tools, procurement software, or a direct query through the API). The version the customer receives is the version the supplier currently considers correct. There is no document to chase, no email exchange to confirm currency, and no second-hand copy to reconcile against the source.
For the supplier, the work changes shape. One record absorbs the questions that previously arrived as repeated requests for the same information, in different formats, from different customer teams. For the customer, the data is fetched at the moment it is needed, from the source that maintains it. The retrieval path carries the verification properties as a function of how it works: the data is current because it is fetched live, authoritative because it comes from the supplier’s own record, and traceable because the path back to the source is the path the customer just took.
How retrieved supplier data compares to attached documents
| Property | Attached document | Retrieved record |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | Fixed at the moment of sending | Fetched live at the point of use |
| Provenance | Lives in the supplier’s system, unreachable by the customer | Present in the retrieval path itself |
| Change history | Invisible to the customer after sending | Held against the supplier’s maintained record |
| Update propagation | Requires a fresh request, email, or reissued file | Happens once at the source, visible on the next retrieval |
| Customer verification effort | Separate exchange for every question | Built into how the retrieval works |
What verifiable supplier data requires
The verification properties customers need are present when supplier data is published and retrieved, because they are properties of the retrieval path itself rather than additions layered on top of a static document. Each retrieval reaches the supplier’s current record, so currency, provenance, and traceability arrive with the exchange shape rather than being claimed separately. Each answer the customer gives downstream, to its own customers, auditors, or regulators, rests on data that came directly from the company that maintains it.
LinkXG is built around this exchange shape. Suppliers publish a structured product record, called a Digital Product Passport (DPP), and customers retrieve it through their own systems via API. A digital product passport is a structured data record that travels with a product throughout its lifecycle, containing verified information about its composition, origin, certifications, and end-of-life handling. The platform sits alongside the compliance and procurement tools buyers already use, improving the quality and currency of the data those tools work with. See pricing tiers for how the supplier side extends from Supplier Free through paid tiers.