Consistent in Pomerania

Businesses evolve. Do lawyers still go for the traditional law firm, wear a toga and a wig, fight the same cases to be recognised as legal advisors? Well, no! Today they have many interesting avenues to pursue from cybercrimes to international intellectual property rights.

The emergence and development of the compliance department in the Tricity shared services centers has been a growing trend for quite some time. This has been possible thanks to, among other things, the availability of the right talent, graduates from the universities and other factors.

Compliance, means to comply, but with what? In practice, it means managing the risk of non-compliance with the law and internal regulations, but also includes social responsibility and business ethics. Compliance, in other words is to ensure that a business adheres to external rules and internal controls so that its managers can rest easy, knowing that they will not be rudely awakened by unexpected subpoenas, financial penalties, proceedings for abuse or fraud or unfavourable press articles.

In Poland (as across the globe), we observe very clear trends in the growing importance of compliance in enterprises of various types and sizes. The market is already verifying the stability, credibility and caution of contractors, eliminating unreliable entities, and it can be expected that it will continue to consistently follow this direction. The field, which, unfortunately, has not yet been introduced as widely and consciously as, for example, in the United States, is beginning to be visibly appreciated and implemented in Poland, as business begins to understand that the implementation of compliance influences the development of the enterprise, creates added value and market advantage.

One of the more obvious reasons is the increase in the number of legal regulations, but also a global approach to doing business. If our business partner, client or part of our company is located outside Poland, we must also take into

account compliance with the regulations and legal standards of that country. What is more interesting – even indirect crimes committed in another country using a company’s tool can be a violation of law. Reason enough to implement risk management for such threats?

So, really, it’s no wonder that compliance departments are booming in Polish businesses as well as in the shared service centers of international corporations. Over the last year alone, we can see a clear trend among the biggest players in the region, such as Bayer and Amazon.

In addition, the already obvious trend of automation and digitization of processes is conducive to the development of non-compliance risk management in the sector of modern business services. Compliance specialists are in great demand in the labor market right now. Law graduates especially, taking into account their knowledge of standards and legal regulations, but also graduates of economics, management and people using foreign languages, because compliance covers various departments in the company and is intertwined with them in search of potential threats and so called bottlenecks in processes.

Compliance comes from regulated industries, especially financial market (banks, brokerage houses, investment funds), where it is very well established and defined by law. Today, it is also spreading on a large scale in the pharmaceutical, e-commerce and insurance industries, where not only compliance with the GDPR is particularly important, but also safety, health and respect for consumer rights.

Often, however, the greatest danger is reputational risk. In connection with the planned amendment to the Act on the liability of a collective entity, international companies have to take care of their reputation even more. They cannot afford to be suspected of money laundering, financial fraud, non-compliance with the minimum wage or the financing of terrorist groups. In this regard, Tricity also stands out on the world map of the business shared services sector, with its Anti Money Laundering and Financial Crime Unit competence centres. Aside from prevention of financial frauds, the next most important compliance issues are centered around security of and transparency towards customers, consumers and shareholders. This is especially true in the case of pharmaceuticals companies. In this case Pomerania is a shining example with two major drug manufacturers choosing the regin for their shared service centers. We are of course talking about the Polish Polpharma and the German Bayer pharmaceutical giants. Both have their shared service centers in Tricity, that employ compliance specialists who care about maintaining the highest standards for customers from all over the world. The growing popularity of the subject of compliance is accompanied not only by the development of the training and courses market in this field, but also by fully developed risk management tools supporting the work of companies in such processes as document management, contract management, due diligence, financial flow control, external reporting calendars, libraries of requirements, monitoring, etc. These help increase work efficiency through faster identification of problems, better communication and reporting, and more efficient detection of potential threats. These tools, very often "made to measure", are offered by external companies. It also happens that they are independently built within the enterprise.

Compliance comes from regulated industries, especially financial market, where it is very well established and defined by law. Today, it is also spreading on a large scale in the pharmaceutical, e-commerce and insurance industries, where not only compliance with the GDPR is particularly important, but also safety, health and respect for consumer rights.

– In 2020 despite the pandemic Bayer was able to establish a Compliance & Data Privacy Operations Team in Service Center Gdańsk. Strong corporate brand and very positive multiyear employer track record of SCG enabled us to recruit successfully legal professionals with diverse backgrounds. Also, positive international perception of Tricity caused many candidates to positively look at compliance work opportunities in Gdańsk – says Krzysztof Mazurek, Regional Legal & Compliance Operations EMEA, Global Anti-Corruption Risk Area Lead, Bayer.

The COVID-19 pandemic not only accelerated and spread the automation of processes, but also caused a much more dynamic development of the e-commerce industry than in previous years. But increased growth brings increased risk and that is why the e-commerce sector has doubled down on both internal regulations as well as industry wide regulations to ensure the safety of the consumer.

Realising that customer trust and confidence is one of their most important assets, Amazon has one of their largest Amazon compliance centers in Tricity where, compliance specialists work towards ensuring strict adherence to compliance of the standards of imported and exported products with the standards of the European Union. There are more regulations ahead of us, which in the near future may further strengthen the importance of compliance in business, but the most important thing still seems to be maintaining the trust of customers and business partners. Proper implementation of changes and raising the standards, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic experience and remote work, has become an important factor influencing the functioning of entire enterprises. Ensuring regulatory compliance in an organization is now a particularly important and more timely task than ever before.

Author: Paulina Śmigielska, Project Manager, Invest in Pomerania

More information:

al. Grunwaldzka 472 D Olivia Business Centre – Olivia Six 80-309 Gdańsk Phone: 58 32 33 256 e-mail: office@investinpomerania.pl paulina.smigielska@investinpomerania.pl www.investinpomerania.pl