The compliance industry is constantly changing as companies rise to the challenges of new legislation and the expectations of their clients, employees and shareholders. Amidst these constant changes, we believe there are five essential things the compliance function must do to drive success in 2017.
1. EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY
No matter the size of your organisation, compliance needs technology to be more efficient and effective. Technology can provide you with a holistic overview of your compliance programme, with real-time information and reports on your programme’s activities. It can serve as a record of your compliance programme documenting changes systematically, creating an audit trail and ultimately, allowing you to concentrate on compliance activities that software cannot supplement. Technology significantly expands the arsenal of tools you can use to drive greater compliance success.
2. OUTSOURCE ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLIANCE TASKS
As organisations seek to save on operational costs and focus on revenue-generating activities, they look to outsource time consuming and resource intensive administration tasks. Minimise your overall headcount cost without compromising on quality or efficiency than to outsource.
3. EDUCATE YOUR ENTIRE WORKFORCE
Your workforce, equipped with the latest compliance training and mobilised by a strong compliance culture, is your greatest line of defence against acts of maleficence. You need to equip your people with the necessary skills and understanding of compliance and couple with a culture of accountability across your organisation. This then will you meet your compliance objectives.
4. BUILD AN AGILE AND SCALABLE PROGRAMME
More and more companies are being prosecuted for compliance failures, and many of these failures involve third parties engaging in corrupt business practices on behalf
of companies. To stay one step ahead companies need to deploy a third party risk management programme that is a suitable size and complexity for their organisation and ensure that it is both scalable and sustainable. An agile third-party programme is the most effective as it can scale up and down required by your third party.
5. UNDERSTAND INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND LIABILITY
Since the Yates Memo, focus on personal liability has increased and this is set to intensify. This increased pressure could affect resources and impact on an organisations ability to recruit and retain talent. To stay ahead of this organisation’s need to ensure their people are aware of regulatory changes and fully understand what they mean for them. A strong culture of compliance and adequate tone from the top is essential to improving awareness and understanding of liability.
This is an extract from The Red Flag Group Annual Report 2016/17. To read the full report please click here
Additional sections of the Annual Report 2016/17 include:
- Our 10-year anniversary and The Red Flag Group in numbers
- Product developments 16/17 - ComplianceDesktop® | Compliance Technology Platform
- Product developments 16/17 - IntegraCheck® | Integrity Due Diligence
- Product developments 16/17 - IntegraWatch® | Compliance Screening
- Product developments 16/17 - Compliance Managed Services
- Product developments 16/17 - Supplier Integrity® | Suppliers Management Platform
- Product developments 16/17 - Advisory Services
