INNOVATION IN COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT
R&C: Could you explain why compliance management has become so important in today’s business world? How are perceptions surrounding this function changing?
Dupuy: Compliance and ethics programmes are at a critical juncture. Increasing regulation, internal and external stakeholder confidence and engagement, as well as the adoption of new technologies are changing the risk landscapes that organisations face. As this pace of change continues to accelerate, business models have had to evolve and with that, compliance functions have also needed to transform the way they better prevent, detect and respond to the widening breadth and quickening pace of risk. As a result, the perception of the compliance function has changed. They are no longer seen as the ‘back office police’, playing a secondary role to front office profit-makers; compliance teams now fulfil a business partnership role with a seat at the table. They are now strategic partners of senior executives, as well as legal and internal auditing teams, embedding themselves within the operational and strategic parts of a business, sharing insights and providing a value-added service to their organisations.
Merk: The way that we do business has completely changed; it is globalised and digitalised. Because of the changing nature of how and with whom we do business, the traditional risk landscape has significantly changed. Exacerbated by the current seismic technological innovation shifts and transforming business models, the range of risks compliance functions are having to deal with are more complex than ever before. Couple that with regulators’ growing appetite to automate the rule books, the landscape of data privacy, fraud, bribery and corruption risk, among others, is ever more complex. And these phenomena are having a profound impact on the ability of businesses to not only compete, but to remain secure.
Jan-Mar 2020 Issue
SAI Global