LinkedIn Article There are many different compliance functions within businesses and for the purpose of this article I am including the following functions in compliance;
- Quality Management
- Compliance
- Health & Safety Management
- Environmental Management
- Regulatory Affairs
The role of these functions within the corporate governance system cannot be underestimated as they are functions that prepare detailed strategies, are required to continually improve their systems, assist in compliance to regulatory requirements and work across almost all functions of the business.
The different responsibilities can be focused onto the following;
- Identify all regulatory requirements related to the activities of the business in all regulatory environment where the business operates, buys or sells products and create policies aligned with the requirements.
- Develop, agree and communicate detailed strategies for the compliance to any current products, processes, systems and reporting structures for the functional and regulatory requirements.
- Develop and implement an audit/review process to monitor and evaluate compliance against the requirements outlined in the policies and procedures.
- Design products and services in-line with customer and stakeholder requirements and establish measurement process to ensure customer and stakeholder satisfaction on a regular basis. Review stakeholder satisfaction and develop action plans to continually improve the performance.
- Design structures to validate compliance with the requirements/specifications for all raw materials, supplier or products.
- Design, implement and evaluation communication strategies for all levels of the organisation and across the value chain to ensure requirements are known and understood by all stakeholders.
- Produce and submit all regulatory reports/submissions/disclosures relating to the activities of the business as required by the regulators.
In short the compliance functions are responsible to identify all the requirements, communicate them internally/externally, design policies/procedures/audit programs in-line with the requirements, monitor performance against the requirements and report any reportable requirements. Additionally the responsibility to continually improve performance lies with the compliance teams to spearhead.
The responsibilities cannot be taken lightly as in the absence of the compliance teams or the compliance to the requirements the business can face hefty fines or even suspension of operations if the regulatory identified misconduct. In this case ignorance of the law is never a “get out of jail free card” it is the owners and managers responsibility to ensure competent professionals are in place. Learn More