The needs and benefits of having an independent compliance officer and a compliance organization are undisputed. Only those who integrate and anchor their Compliance Management System within the organization, can generate added value for the company.

Compliance Management has evolved into a strong governance partner, and not only because of legal needs. In addition to Risk Management and Internal Revision, Compliance Management basically serves as damage prevention to the organization and/or manages compliance risks in greater detail. Examples of such risks include bribery, conflicts of interest, violations of laws or regulations, antitrust violations, data breaches or tax evasion. The modern understanding of Compliance Management encompasses not only compliance with external requirements (laws, national and international regulations), but also compliance with internal regulations and guidelines.

A compliance officer (usually realized as a staff position) is the responsible person for the implementation, operation and further development of the Compliance Management System in the company. And not only that, but a compliance officer  him- or herself also requires the involvement of all employees, in particular managers, in order to guarantee compliance with the internal and external requirements. The challenge in implementing and embedding the idea of Compliance Management is to get the commitment – not just from the top management, but also from every single employee.

Especially the last aspect, anchoring in the organization, is essential for acceptance in the enterprise and successful implementation. It is important to integrate the processes of Compliance Management into existing structures of Process Management, Risk Management and the Internal Control System.

In addition to the technical integration, the decision regarding the tool support for Compliance Management is essential. Here too, an integrated solution should be favoured, in which all stakeholders work collaboratively on Process, Risk and Compliance Management. Only such a networked implementation makes it possible to create interdisciplinary analyses that allow for an early detection of negative trends and unwanted developments.

For the Compliance Management itself, the technical support of two roles – the compliance officer and the department head – is vital.

The ADONIS NP GRC suite provides the ability to integrate and connect the systems for processes, risks and compliance requirements in a modern, web-based application. With customized functions for the individual stakeholders, not only the operation of such a system is easy – through workflow support, versioning and historicization, the creation of a gapless audit trail is also realized.