We have already described in this article how compliance has become increasingly important for the corporate sector, especially after the global financial crisis in the beginning of the 21st century.
Corporate sector understands that with the growing regulatory requirements, it makes much more sense to be proactive and prevent any business irregularities, rather than addressing them after they occur.
With that in mind, corporate legal or compliance departments are tasked to prevent any business practices that are against the relevant regulations. Therefore, these departments draft numerous policies and internal procedures that other sectors in the company need to abide by. Usually, anyone with whom a company is doing business should also respect these policies and procedures.
Compliance beyond legal
However, compliance doesn’t exist only in legal terms; companies develop various policies to ensure best business practices. Let’s take a look at a few examples, which represent some of the recent trends in corporate culture.
For instance, corporate influencers are becoming more and more present in the web world. These are usually employees who publish affirmative posts on social media about their company. Although desired by the companies, the activities of such individuals may not only represent a legal but also a reputational liability. This is why it becomes a necessity for companies to develop clear social media strategies and policies for any corporate influencer to be aligned with.
Now, let’s imagine an enthusiastic influencer screening a corporate social media policy before posting…
More traditional example, causing a similar situation, may be with the procurement department, which is given a task by the manufacturing department to urgently organise the purchase of scarce raw materials. The main concerns of procurement will be to get enough materials on time, at a favourable price. Under short deadlines and limited budgets, there is the corporate CSR policy which the procurement department also needs to be aware of.
Now, imagine the procurement manager skimming through the CSR policy while under pressure to close the deal…
Not much different may be the situation with the sales department. The sales team may be under pressure to close a big deal with a promising target. During the negotiation process, the price is the stepping stone, and in order to close the deal, the sales department needs to make sure that the price offered is not in any way violating the market competition regulatory framework.
Now, let’s imagine the sales manager who is under pressure and a short deadline, waiting for the compliance department to say that the deal will not jeopardise market competition…
These are just some examples of the situations that corporations face daily.
Business and compliance managers who are reading this article are probably thinking that this is all very common and that their companies have everything covered with the respective policies and finely tuned procedures in place.
But how often do sales departments keep waiting for months to close the deal because they are waiting for a compliance check to be over and the transaction to be approved?
How often does procurement keep suppliers on long hold while expecting to receive the approval from the CSR or ethical committee?
Do influencers really have the luxury of not being on top of the “feed” because they were late with posting?
What is the alternative?
This is where GapApp shows its power. These burdening corporate policies can be turned into automated Gap Forms. GapApp uses the forms to collect essential information from the relevant stakeholders in the company and instantly tell them if their business practice or decision is compliant and therefore possible. In this way, any delays in business processes are avoided, and the heavy burden of compliance checks is taken off the managers’ shoulders. GapApp does the job for them by red-flagging any potentially damaging events for the company.
If you would like to check how GapApp could serve your department, please contact us at [email protected].
Author: Vojislav Bajić
This article is sponsored by GapApp.io
