Compliance in operations and the supply chain

Globalisation as a megatrend of our time is increasingly overlaid with questions of sustainability. Both regulation and transparency requirements for companies in B2B and B2C business are increasing. Companies implement these requirements with management systems and prove their implementation through certification and validation. This creates reliability in complex supply chains with a multitude of actors. The standardisation of such processes creates a common understanding and coordinated interfaces across all hierarchical levels and corporate functions in the long term.

Compliance issues of this kind are regularly driven by decision-makers for whom an appropriate organisation to meet legal requirements is relevant and who want to achieve evidence of the effectiveness of these measures and compliance. Particularly in environmental protection and occupational health and safety, there are nowadays hundreds of compliance requirements that companies have to adhere to and which are no longer only important to legislators, but also to suppliers or the public, for example.

In the organisation of our supply chains, negative effects such as civil wars, destruction of natural resources and non-compliance with human rights must be consistently avoided. Raw materials that are mined in non-compliance with these criteria are referred to as conflict minerals. The trend towards responsibility for supply chains is also growing strongly. These are coming more into focus in order to avoid the presence of conflict minerals in one's own production and supply chain. This leads to increasing compliance requirements in operations and the supply chain, which are accompanied by a broadening of the field of vision and greater consideration of a clean supply chain.

Outsourcing in particular, as an integral part of a variety of supply chains, often triggers a lack of transparency in supply chains and creates potential sustainability risks. In order to establish and maintain an expanded field of vision, it is therefore not enough for companies to only superficially monitor supply chains. Rather, entrepreneurs need to establish and integrate elaborate management systems to ensure compliance. In addition, ideas and approaches should be developed on how to manage sustainability risks for the companies concerned so that value chains can be made more sustainable overall. Some company management regularly encounters problems with these tasks, as the management systems must be individually tailored to each company and its employees.

In large parts of the requirements, companies are also obliged to have the management systems certified and validated. Accreditations provide reliable and trustworthy proof of the suitability of an audit firm and are awarded in Germany exclusively by the German Accreditation Body (DAkkS). They are internationally recognised, as the DAkkS is a member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), the European co-operation for Accreditation (EA) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). This additionally builds integrity with business partners and customers.