Sanctions cited as significant challenge for compliance and procurement decision-makers
Compliance and procurement professionals have had significant geo-political and environmental challenges this year. Fraud continues to present challenges for many companies, and understanding third-party relationships and secondary and tertiary suppliers is not always easily managed. On top of that, the complexities of global sanctions, such as those for Iran and Russia, are difficult for some procurement and compliance people to manage.
These are among the findings revealed in our second Dun & Bradstreet Compliance and Procurement Sentiment Report, designed to uncover the issues that impact compliance and procurement professionals. We again surveyed more than 600 professionals from both the US and UK on a range of questions about their day-to-day and how they respond to change. This second report measures the shift in overall sentiment compared with our benchmark report earlier this year, and it digs deeper into the areas of, technology, fraud and the convergence of compliance and procurement.
Technology continues to be a driving force in both the compliance and procurement functions. In fact, it can be viewed as an overwhelming enabler to success in their roles. The initial survey revealed more than one-third (36%) of respondents felt technology is among the barriers preventing them from doing their jobs effectively. Because technology maturity levels and how it is used within due diligence programs can vary dramatically, we asked respondents in the most recent survey how they view technology as it relates to specific duties within the compliance and procurement functions. In every case, a majority of respondents cited technology as an enabler vs. a barrier.
That includes 88% who view technology as enabling process management, 87% who said it enables supplier spend analysis, and 86% who view it as enabling data management.
Our June survey also highlighted the convergence of the procurement and compliance roles. In this current study, we looked more closely, and respondents indicated a clear benefit when bringing similar tasks together across the two departments. Respondents that do not have combined compliance and procurement functions said the convergence of the two would have “a very” or “a fairly positive” outcome on their business. That sentiment is particularly true in process and vendor management, areas in which coming together could help deal with the due diligence issue.
Despite the challenges they face – natural disasters, global sanctions, risk of fraud and technological barriers -- these professionals revealed in our survey that they are positive overall when considering the current and future effectiveness of the work they do in compliance and procurement. We’ll continue to keep you apprised with another installment of the Sentiment Index early next year.