While banks and insurance companies have long focused on compliance, the subject is still new in industrial and commercial businesses. The definition of “compliance” is not always clear. Compliance can be defined in a general way as all the actions aimed at complying with the laws, regulations, and other standards applicable by the company, its managers, its employees but also by all third parties having interactions with them.
Beyond the external “constraints”, it also relates to the voluntary commitments that the organization gives itself, in particular through the values, ethics, and rules instilled by general management. In concrete terms, the scope of compliance can include a wide variety of areas, ranging from legal to human resources, through technical, accounting, taxation, and even the environment.
Continuous development is one of the key objectives of any business. However, it is often difficult to even keep the occupied positions because of the emerging risks that can cause tangible damage to the economic side of the business and, just as important, to the brand’s reputation.
Therefore, more and more companies are consulting compliance outsourcing companies that can identify the presence of prerequisites for the occurrence of a risk even before its manifestation and prevent possible negative consequences.
In business terms, compliance means regulating a company’s activities under legal, ethical, and social requirements. Moreover, this applies to both the external and internal activity of the organization. Compliance allows not only to prevent the emergence of obvious risks but also to reveal hidden violations at the enterprise.
Often, the main thing for business owners is to make a profit, and some managers try to get more using various illegal schemes. Such people risk their business reputation and sometimes their freedom. In turn, compliance with the necessary regulations for conducting an honest and mutually beneficial business has a positive effect on the company’s activities. Risk prevention allows you to avoid many serious problems when interacting with regulatory authorities, counterparties, and customers.
To implement a good compliance system, companies often turn to compliance outsourcing companies. The experts of these companies then intervene in various fields, including:
- The fight against fraud;
- The fight against money laundering and terrorism financing;
- The protection of personal data;
- Competition law;
- CSR (corporate social responsibility);
- Safety, health, and working conditions.
There is no standard perimeter of compliance that applies to all companies. Each must identify the most important subjects for it, through a mapping of the risks of non-compliance.
A compliance outsourcing company also defines, deploys, and controls the systems intended to ensure the compliance of the operations undertaken. It supports the company in its strategy, to conduct a clean activity, be respectful of regulations, and avoid any sanction or fine. Choosing compliance outsourcing is an opportunity to set up or review your compliance plan: by mapping out compliance risks, adopting a code of good conduct, being more transparent, evaluating the integrity of its third parties, and setting up a training program and clear sanctions.