Consumer product companies and grocery retailers are important businesses that provide essential food products around the world and build trusted relationships with consumers. As a major economic driver with a significant impact on the environment and the consumption of sustainable products, these companies must absolutely focus on meeting government regulations and industry compliance standards. With that in mind, what role does data play in these ever-evolving regulations?
Bold goals, invisible achievements
Today’s CPG and retail industries often encounter a dichotomy between sustainability goals and the execution of their operations. Governments and regulators have enacted multiple complex laws in a short period of time, making it difficult to keep up. While nearly every major company has issued a bold ESG statement, the reality is that understanding and identifying the “starting point” requires a great deal of effort and a high degree of manual labor, and will continue to do so. This is what you need.
They often do not have efficient models in place to capture, manage, and report sustainability and compliance data in a highly automated manner. Companies are reluctant to make impactful operational changes due to lack of clarity about how to move forward, dependence on other agents in the value chain, and isolation from necessary investments. I’m having a hard time. Some regulations are defined “on paper” without considering industry context or circumstances. For example, the EU introduced controversial legislation to significantly reduce the use of pesticides in agriculture, but it was repealed in February 2024 after a backlash.
Various ways to respond
Despite the challenges they face, companies are beginning to take action to ensure compliance as regulations continue to evolve and, more importantly, to ensure a flexible framework for future compliance. It’s starting to start. These measures can be organizational (e.g., defining new roles to take the lead (e.g., Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Legal Officer) or adjusting existing roles to respond to challenges); to those that insert sustainability and compliance elements into core processes. Ensure data is captured, validation is performed, limits are applied, and reports are generated.
Technology is another key angle in a company’s compliance strategy. Almost any It’s getting the attention of the organization. However, implementation levels vary widely due to the “well-known” barriers to smooth progression, such as disparate systems, legacy persistence, and data silos.
Fair demands from industry
When we have open and transparent conversations with consumer product companies and food retailers about how this regulatory storm will impact their organizations, they make three clear demands:
- Global standards and regional approaches and requirements.
- Reasonable milestones and unattainable goals.
- Active industry participation and input in defining the “new way of doing things.”
Do these demands make your goals less ambitious? Probably not. You should take a chance and try it out.
Evaluation of starting point
As previously mentioned, there may be some delays at the start. Here are some questions to get started.
- Is there a person or department, such as Regulatory Affairs or Compliance, who is responsible for identifying and evaluating regulations as they emerge and evolve, and determining their potential impact on the business?
- Is there a clear framework of responsibilities and responsibilities across the organization? New roles such as chief compliance officer will help ensure that compliance processes run as lean and efficient as possible, including across data management and operational areas, legal, risk, and It is necessary to build an appropriate cooperation scheme with security at the core.
- How can your team create a regulatory data plan that links to your overall data strategy and data roadmap to increase awareness and reduce risk?
- Are you creating the right balance between global and local compliance management and enforcement?
how to move forward
When dealing with the complex landscape of regulatory challenges in the consumer goods and retail industry, trusted data can play a critical role in driving compliance and sustainability efforts. As companies grapple with the dichotomy between ambitious ESG goals and tangible results, there is growing recognition of the need for efficient models for capturing, managing and reporting compliance data, and evolving regulations We believe we need to leverage data management tools to stay agile in the face of… is also key. Avoid creating ad hoc, manual, and unintegrated tools and solutions and accelerate adoption of existing applications and enterprise solutions that integrate compliance data requirements into business processes and ensure scalability.
Leveraging technologies such as master data management allows organizations to implement new governance rules, reduce potentially harmful silos, organize records into a single truth, and create data models that directly align with regulatory requirements. will help you create. Doing so will ensure your organization is prepared and compliant, allowing your business to continue to focus on growth and customer service.
