@Risk

The third annual Ernst & Young Business Risk Report is out, and this year, the survey reveals the most important business risks varied dramatically across sectors, regions and companies.

For example, executives ranked regulation and compliance as the top business risk across the majority of sectors, undoubtedly related to the aftermath of the global financial crisis and prompted by a general uncertainty in the market place driven by regulatory reform. However, limited access to credit and the threat of continuing weak economic performance in certain regions of the world remain high on the list of potential concerns, ranking second and third, respectively. And, the fastest growing risk seen by survey participants is their companies’ abilities to succeed in emerging markets, a factor that is cited as a strategic imperative for global growth.

In addition to reflecting back over the past year, the report looks forward, hoping to predict business risks that will have a strong presence in the near future. According to the report, these risks include: (more…)

Nearly half (45 percent) of the supply chain professionals recently surveyed by global logistics firm BDP International and its Centrx consulting unit indicated they are supporting their internal regulatory compliance departments with external resources. Not surprisingly, the need for supplemental compliance services was especially pronounced for companies with under $1 billion in annual revenues and for those doing business in emerging markets.

Growing concerns over environmental and safety issues have created a complicated tangle of trade and security programs that now impact importers, exporters and essentially, all stages of product manufacture and distribution. Compliance with new regulations such as the EU REACH and U.S. Importer’s Security Filing 10+2 programs can be both complex and costly, and findings from the survey suggest that companies typically deal with product-related regulations such as registration, labeling and marked, themselves, while outsourcing compliance for product  movement.

Here are a few more survey results I found particularly intriguing: (more…)

Doug Cornelius writes a blog called “Compliance Building,” and he has done a fantastic job of summarizing sessions from this week’s Global Ethics Summit 2010, hosted by Dow Jones and Ethisphere.

In today’s increasingly complex and often unpredictable business environment, corporations are taking a long, hard look at their compliance practices. After all, effective compliance is a fundamental component of any supplier risk management program.  It reduces the likelihood of an offense.  And in some cases, it also can mitigate penalties (and negative perception) if noncompliance does occur. The conference was designed to help companies learn about current trends and best practices so that they can conduct business both successfully and ethically. (more…)

Nearly two-thirds of business executives say converging their companies’ Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) initiatives is now a priority, driven by business complexity, the desire to improve risk management and a need to reduce costs, according to a recent global survey by KPMG International.

The survey results are available in KPMG’s new 44-page report, “The convergence challenge: Global survey into the integration of governance, risk and compliance,” where I learned that: (more…)

In yesterday’s post about the FDA’s new PREDICT program, I included a few startling statistics about pharmaceuticals imports.

Today, new survey results suggest that global life science companies are increasingly concerned about growing global supply chain complexity and its effect on quality and compliance.

The survey, conducted by Sparta Systems, was administered to professionals in the pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and blood/tissue industries. The data reveals that: (more…)