Transforming Annual Government Reporting From Manual to Automated

Challenge

A large organisation was required to assess their supply chain for forced labour, child labour, and other modern slavery risks to produce a report for government legislation. For the first year, they did this entirely by hand, including crafting an assessment in excel and sending it to suppliers to fill out. When year two came around, the team had to evaluate, enhance, then repeat the process, and manually make sense of the data again to compile a compliant report for submission. This process was not only time-consuming but also prone to human error and inconsistencies.

Solution

The company needed a solution for this years’ report, and wanted to future-proof the

process too. By transitioning to iPRO’s simple and affordable software tool, the organisation

simplified their approach. The tool automated supplier onboarding and assessment workflows, allowing the compliance team to quickly gather supplier data and update their government report with minimal manual effort. Given that key tasks for data collection and reporting were streamlined and automated, the team could focus on addressing supply chain risks and working collaboratively with suppliers to close any gaps.

Results

With iPRO, the organisation reduced the time spent on assessments by over 70%. They found the process to be far more efficient and cost-effective, as it significantly cut down on work hours and reduced the risk of human error. The team could now focus more on strategic oversight rather than administrative tasks. Additionally, the simple assessment and reporting workflow combined with the annual report outputs ensured that the right risk and policy data was matched to each reporting criteria and ready for the team to finalise well ahead of the deadline.

Top 10 Benefits of streamlining your Annual Bill S-211 Reporting

1. Reduced Due Diligence Costs: Significantly reduce the cost of forced labour and child labour due diligence, company-wide.

2. Enhanced Legislative Compliance: Meet government reporting requirements seamlessly.

3. Increased Supplier Transparency: Gain clearer visibility into your supply chain across product/service categories and geography.

4. Higher Supplier Engagement: Increase supplier response rates with clear, automated onboarding steps.

5. Enhanced Supplier Accountability: Suppliers are more accountable for their risks with action plans that help them improve.

6. Improved Customer Trust: Demonstrate significant efforts on ethical sourcing to customers, business partners and stakeholders.

7. Streamlined Risk Reporting: Easily generate risk reports for internal and client-facing needs.

8. Reduced Admin Time: Cut down on manual effort by automating compliance administration tasks.

9. Simplified Compliance: Ensure every supplier can easily engage in modern slavery assessment and compliance.

10. Better Risk Mitigation: Simple tools to identify risks early, and have your suppliers address any gaps in policies and procedures.