The Great Wall of Compliance

Climbing on the Great Wall of China made me think of Great Protection. If I would define what that Great Protection is, I would say that it is a good and solid compliance program within organisation. It is already a strong defence, however not enough at all!

The Great Wall was built to protect the weakest parts of the country’s borders. Likewise, compliance programs are created to set up a frames of requirements and control processes and interactions.

Walking by that difficult route reminded me that even the best security tools are not enough when t

there is no culture of acting legally, ethically and according to all.

Our organisations are constantly interacting with external environment, as China interacted with their neighbours and used the Great Wall also for trade and transport purposes.

Strong governance and effective compliance requires to proactively react and constantly interact with business environment, ethics, social norms, and laws.

Even the strongest Great Protection 

will not protect company 

if the business is run in illegal way. 

That is why the key to success 

is to run business according to 

the law and to run it in a good fashion.

You need to remember and always take into consideration your surroundings in order build the best Great Wall for your organisation!

Just a reminder:

What is an organizational environment? It is a composition of forces or institutions surrounding an organization that affect performance, operations, and resources. It includes all of the elements that exist outside of the organization's boundaries and have the potential to affect a portion or all of the organization. Examples include government regulatory agencies, competitors, customers, suppliers, and pressure from the public.

Internal Environment

An organization's internal environment consists of the entities, conditions, events, and factors within the organization that influence choices and activities. It exposes the strengths and weaknesses found within the organization. Factors that are frequently considered part of the internal environment include the employee behavior, the organization's culture, mission statement, and leadership styles.

External Environment

Consists of entities, conditions, events, and factors surrounding the organisation that influence choices and activities, and determine its opportunities and threats. It is also called an operating environment. Examples of factors effecting an organisation’s external environment include customers, public opinion, economic conditions, government regulations, and competitors.

UK Modern Slavery Act – are you ready?

Modern Slavery is a serious crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. It takes various forms, such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person's liberty by another in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain. Modern Slavery victims can often face more than one type of abuse and slavery, for example if they are sold from one trafficker to another and are forced into different forms of exploitation. A person is trafficked if they are brought to or moved around a country by others who threaten, frighten, hurt and force them to do work or other things they do not want to do.

The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA) requires certain larger companies that carry on business or part of a business in the UK to publish an annual statement setting out what the business has done during the year to combat Modern Slavery both within the business itself and its supply chains. The UK government hopes that by holding businesses to account and increasing transparency, this terrible crime will be exposed and eventually eradicated.

A business may report that it has done nothing, however this is likely to lead to reputational damage as more and more customers and investors wish to work with businesses that have high ethical standards.

PRACTICAL ADVICE: What you can do to be compliant?

• To demonstrate your company’s commitment to eliminating Modern Slavery, adopt a Policy and train all employees on a zero-tolerance approach to Modern Slavery.
• Publish MSA statement on your company website to demonstrate to the market what steps your company taken during the year to mitigate all slavery acts.
• Make sure that all staff is firmly committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all your business dealings and relationships.
• Implement effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our your business or in any of your supply chains, especially implement mandatory contract clause:

Slavery and Human Trafficking

1.1              The Supplier shall and shall procure that its directors, employees, agents, representatives, contractors or sub-contractors shall comply with all applicable anti-slavery and human trafficking laws, statutes, regulations and codes from time to time in force including, but not limited to, the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015.

1.2              The Supplier shall [comply with the Customer’s anti-slavery policy] OR [have and maintain throughout the term of this agreement its own policies and procedures to ensure its compliance].

1.3              The Supplier shall not engage in any activity, practice or conduct that would constitute an offence under sections 1, 2 or 4 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 if such activity, practice or conduct were carried out in the UK.

1.4              Breach of this Clause shall entitle the Customer to terminate this Agreement by written notice with immediate effect. 

Compliance Officers - it’s time for marketing!

It's not in our nature and DNA to promote and sales, I totally understand that! We are focused on advisory and consultancy so much, that we sometimes suffer from not be visible.

Our work is crucial for the success of wider organisations, it is essential part of all projects and initiatives. We do really protect our colleagues and management from failure..


All in all, it is really important to do some marketing around our work. Why not to produce some leaflet or short article for the internal magazine.

Be creative! Think about key aspects of the spotlight you want to share and how you want to be visualize by your colleagues.

Or simply use some templates, like this one.