How to Ensure Regulatory Compliance in Manufacturing Industry?

Compliance management has drastically evolved in the past few years. And while companies don’t often feel it, these positive changes are helping hundreds of thousands of companies, and their executive teams grow consistently and avoid financial disasters that could cause significant problems within their organizations. 

As an organization that operates within the United States, it is crucial to adhere to a wide range of regulatory requirements. Imagine this. You’re a U.S.-based non-profit that has to adhere to a minimum of 50 Federal, state-specific, and local regulations to keep receiving the grants. Right from the FDA and IRS to DOJ Federal laws, there are several other state-specific rules that you need to comply with. Monitoring and tracking the regulator compliance requirements are time-consuming. Doing it manually makes it even more cumbersome. 

Risk is often associated with note-worthy incidents or high-profile events, such as data breaches, natural disasters, health crises, or high-level corruption. However, the risk is not just the vulnerability to massive disruption, it is a product of uncertainty, and uncertainty is a constant. Uncertainty is not necessarily a bad thing, markets, and supply chains ebb and flows, regulations change and adapt to new conditions, and the industry evolves to maintain competitiveness. Along the way, many disruptions will arise. Risk assessment is the disciple of navigating that uncertainty, maintaining momentum through the small challenges, assessing the impact, and preparing to meet the difficult ones.

Integrated Risk Management (IRM) Framework views and analyzes risks that are unique to the organization and utilizes technology and effective procedures and practices in order to produce the most effective outcome. It is important to remember that improper risk management can be detrimental. The business may sink if it arranges its resources in a manner that has not fully prepared for every possibility.

Since the beginning of business whether they knew it or not organizations have always been analyzing risk and implementing mitigation procedures. It wasn’t until 2002 when Michael Rasmussen and OCEG finally defined the field of risk management and coined the term GRC (governance, risk, and compliance). The concept was revolutionary, in a time when the world of business was becoming ever-more complex the field of thought known as GRC outlined and defined the interconnectivity of common areas of risk and established methods of prevention.

ESG is an attempt to analyze the most important elements of an organization and how policies are regulated and applied. Organizations should address environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices and reporting within their framework. Originally designed to better approach the most sustainable realms of investment, ESG has evolved into a ubiquitous public discussion that greatly impacts the business ecosystem.

Third-party relations have become a critical aspect of any business operation as the list of tools and skills required to conduct business has become quite lengthy. Organizations now rely on a network of third parties that can be outsourced. While outsourcing specific tasks can save time and be more financially feasible, it does come with its own set of risks. Outsourcing various operations leave the organization vulnerable to risks without any oversight and an effective policy management framework in place with clearly defined procedures.

Information security is not getting easier. Organization, technology, and data complexity has grown exponentially, and an adequate and effective IT security policy requires constant tracking and managing. Organizations are in a constant state of flux and change, and IT is in no way immune to this change. As the organization evolves, the underlying IT infrastructure is in a constant need to be stitched up and monitored.

Is your organization’s policy management framework optimized for hybrid operations? In response to the needs and requirements of employees in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations are offering their employees a hybrid working option or simply working completely remotely from home. In other words, many workers are going into the workplace part time and many others never even leave their homes. These offerings are done in the hopes that business will carry on as usual.