Can You Solve the Compliance Challenge?

Regulatory compliance is usually defined by an organization’s adherence to laws, regulations, guidelines and specifications relevant to its business.

There are two primary categories:

  • Internal compliance that focusses on the policies and procedures of the organization (which must be followed to insure SOX compliance) and is focussed on personnel and procurement
  • External compliance that focusses on the (government) legislation and agreements that govern the operation of the organization and falls into the categories of:
    • financial/operational
    • import/export
    • environmental
    • private data / worker’s rights
    • insurance / liability

Non-compliance can be a very costly situation for an organization to find itself in as it can cost an organization hundreds of millions of dollars in some cases. Consider the following costs of external non-compliance:

Financial

  • SOX violations can cost up to 5M per violation; even Deloitte, known for its audits, had to pay 2 Million for a SOX violation
  • Anti-bribery violations have no ceiling; Aon paying £ 5.25 M in 2009, Wills Limited paying £ 6.9 M in 2011, and Macmillan Publishers paying £ 11.26 M in 2011
  • FCPA violations don’t have a ceiling either; Weatherford International paid $152.6 M in 2013, Alcoa paid $384 M in 2014, and Siemens paid $800 M in 2008

Import/Export

Meggitt paid 25 M in 2013 to settle charges of AECA & ITAR violations, Standard Chartered Bank paid 132 M in 2012 to settle charges of OFAC sanction violations, and ING Bank N.V. recently paid 619 M to settle charges of several OFAC sanction violations

Insurance

In 2012, Wal-Mart paid $8M to settle a workers’ compensation class action settlement, and in 2010 a jury awarded $82.5 in a workplace death lawsuit

Lack of compliance costs. Dearly. Why is there a lack of compliance in most organizations? Lack of knowledge, policy, visibility, analysis, and procurement technology. Knowledge can be addressed with training. Policy can be fixed with planning. But visibility, analysis, and procurement fixes require technology.

What kind of technology?

Supply Chain Visibility, Spend Analytics, and a Procurement Marketplace that captures, tracks, and maintains an audit trail of all of the relevant data to insure SOX and FCPA are not violated, import and export restrictions and requirements are adhered to, and that suppliers comply with insurance and regulatory compliance.

To find out how a Procurement Marketplace helps your organization solve the compliance challenge, reduce maverick spending, and enable organizational growth, download Sourcing Innovation’s latest white-paper on The
Procurement Marketplace and The Power of Compliance (registration required), sponsored by Vinimaya.