Comply to succeed

Monidee’s William Janse lifts the lid on strategies and procedures when adhering to compliance and risk management regulations.

BM. Compliance and risk management has risen in prominence for businesses of all shapes and sizes. What has driven this need to have correct procedures in place and dedicated compliance and risk professionals on board?
William Janse. The rise in major international incidents due to corporate misconduct, focus on short-term objectives as opposed to building long-term value, business decisions based solely on what is good for a single category of stakeholders (the shareholder), combined with the need to prevent acts of terrorism and international crime has driven a strong demand for increasing ethics, transparency and accountability of organisations. In many cases, these demands are fully supported by the public from a corporate social responsibility and ethics perspective, which further strengthens the need for strong compliance and risk management.

In this regard numerous new legislation and reforms in legal and regulatory regimes have been imposed on organisations. Demonstrating compliance, a clear signal indicating that the risks and interests of all stakeholders are taken seriously, begins by determining which laws and regulations apply to your activities and entities. Once established, embedding in a sustainable compliance process is important to prevent incidents from happening. To do so, the right professionals, procedures and systems need to be in place (people, process, technology) to maintain a sustainable compliance process and establish a genuine ethics culture - 'compliance is your concern' so 'do the right thing'.

BM. Organisations tend to have multiple business units and departments. Why is it important to ensure that your compliance is tailored to each area, instead of relying on a 'one size fits all' approach?
WJ. It is important to have an univocal corporate (central) compliance risk management framework which is centrally managed to have an overview of all the areas of exposure (KYC, privacy, competitive practices, fraud, and so on) and associated sets of norms and controls in an organisation. To be able to align with the business lines and processes, the framework must be able to adapt to the internal and external business contexts and cultures in which the organisation operates, so that it can address specific (regional) activities (products and services), obligations and utilise best practices.

Each area requires specific knowledge/expertise. Hence, a local or distributed approach is important. At corporate level you cannot have sufficient knowledge of all local business lines and processes and their internal and external business contexts and cultures. Strong co-operation between corporate and the business lines is essential to tailor the framework.

BM. What are main compliance and risk challenges that organisations are looking to manage today?
WJ. Problems always have solutions. Take a good look at the challenges and develop a sustainable approach to managing risks and maximising opportunities throughout the organisation. You should:

• Establish a genuine ethics culture and promote strong compliance and risk management - 'compliance is your concern' so 'do the right thing'
• Rethink future financial (product) innovation with the current crisis and the globalisation of financial markets in mind

• Address (business process) outsourcing;
• Understand where requirements originate and responsibilities lie in complex and inter-related global economic systems
• Keep up with growth of regulatory oversight across the globe
• Address all stakeholders, including internal stakeholders as employees, stakeholders in the value chain as suppliers and customers, external stakeholders as investors, shareholders and communities
• Ensure compliance risks are addressed univocally across all the business lines and processes with assessments executed consistently and systematically, instead of reactively and dissimilarly managed approaches (unified approach)

Lack of clear accountability leads to corporate misconduct, non-compliance and other dysfunction that affects all stakeholders significantly. Investors are willing to pay a premium for well-governed companies.

BM. Can you give an example of how your solutions proved beneficial for a client recently?
WJ. Together with a well-organised Corporate Compliance Competence Center at Eureko (Achmea/Interpolis), we (Monidee) recently customised and implemented our solution tControl, known as CoTheSys within Eureko, which enables Eureko to:

• Ensure compliance risks are addressed univocally across all the business lines and processes with assessments executed consistently and systematically, instead of reactively and dissimilarly managed approaches (unified approach)
• Increase accuracy and visibility of compliance risk information
• Reduce the cost and complexity of compliance risk management
• Demonstrate compliance, a clear signal indicating that the risks and interests of all stakeholders are taken seriously
• Be in control;

William Janse, Bachelor of Science in Information and Communication Technology, is the responsible executive for information technology (financial, compliance and risk solutions) and marketing within Monidee.