Vermont is known for maple syrup, fall foliage, covered bridges and now . . . embezzlement?
As strange as it sounds, Vermont topped the list of states with the highest risk of loss due to embezzlement in 2011, according to new research from Marquet International Ltd.
The 2011 Marquet Report On Embezzlement, examined 473 major employee theft cases active in the US last year and found that: Continue Reading »
European insurers are racing to meet Solvency II requirements by the January 1, 2014 deadline, and many are facing a stiff head wind, particularly with respect to their reliance on third parties for data, the sophisticated risk modeling requirements and the difficulties associated with obtaining sufficiently detailed fund data.
More specifically, a new study by BNP Paribas Securities Services and InteDelta found that insurers are facing key challenges around: Continue Reading »
How will your company find the leadership talent it needs to retain its competitive edge?
Unfortunately, the search may be more difficult than you realize.
Results from a new study by Deloitte indicate there’s both a growing shortage of executive leadership and evolving regional differences in talent needs around the globe. Consequently, organizations are going to have to invest more in talent priorities and initiatives in order to find the appropriate executive leadership required for continued success.
Here are a few key finding from Deloitte’s new report, Talent Edge 2020: Redrafting Talent Strategies for the Uneven Recovery: Continue Reading »
As The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, Apple Inc. is “increasingly finding itself pinched between the promise and perils of doing business in China.”
Last Friday –and for the first time ever –Apple released a comprehensive list of its major suppliers and a detailed report on factory inspections throughout the company’s sprawling supply chain.
In addition, Apple recently became the first technology company accepted by the Fair Labor Association (FLA), an organization that monitors workplace environments worldwide.
These moves come on the heels of stepped-up pressure from activists worldwide. Earlier this month, workers from a Foxconn Technology factory in China waged a large protest that involved threats from some to commit suicide. Continue Reading »
The US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) has proposed a set of recommended best practices to help the pharmaceutical industry improve supply chain integrity and reduce risks of counterfeit or mishandled medicines.
Improvements like these are long overdue. As I reported last spring, research from PwC concluded that many pharmaceutical supply chains have suffered from what amounts to benign neglect. As a result, they are inefficient, under-utilized and ill-equipped to cope with new medicines, cost pressures and health reform expectations.
Sure, in today’s global economy relationships between suppliers and other business entities are often opaque and difficult to track, but clearly, it’s time for the pharmaceutical industry to step up to better ensure that medicines can be traced back to their original manufacturer, are not adulterated or counterfeited and are transported to their intended destination with their quality intact.
Too many companies have discovered the hard way that “willful blindness” only increases their culpability in the eyes of Federal agents, regulators who now are cracking down on businesses that aren’t compliant with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Don’t take that kind of risk. Resolve that this is the year to start better managing your multiple supplier master databases as you monitor and mitigate supplier risk in a global operating arena.
“There is incentive for all players in the pharmaceutical industry—large and small companies, regulators and standards-setting bodies—to come to some agreement on hotbutton issues such as track and trace technology and, at the larger level, to codify what constitutes a solid, universal approach to global supply chain integrity,” said Praveen Tyle, Ph.D., chief science officer for USP.
USP’s proposed standard covers four main areas: Continue Reading »
