Mitigating Compliance Headaches for Small Hospitality Companies

Last year, a French hospitality management organization with properties distributed worldwide was operating without compliance software. The compliance team is small and had few resources, so they were not able to be proactive about third-party due diligence. Manually onboarding and monitoring third parties is a common hurdle compliance teams face because the processes are often time-consuming, disparate, and inefficient. However, not vetting or monitoring of third parties left the company susceptible to unknown risk.

In addition, a regulation called SAPIN II would take effect in a few short months. Understanding the impact that this new regulation would have, the French hospitality company realized that having a compliance platform in place would protect them from potential fines by automating processes and providing them with a single place of record.

The company’s two-person compliance department serves more than 700 employees. This isn’t a remarkable situation in itself; there are many instances in which small compliance teams serve larger organizations. However, what is remarkable is how the team took definitive steps to reduce risks within their company. The team was driven to action by the realization of the impact that SAPIN II would have on their business.

SAPIN II is a French anti-corruption law that requires companies to implement extensive measures to prevent and detect corruption or influence peddling, both within France and abroad. As part of its plan to comply with the new regulation and with third-party due diligence top of mind, the team began vetting technology vendors for a tool that would solve both of these problems.

Selecting A Vendor
The compliance team undertook a thorough vetting process involving several technology providers. They used a scoring rubric to rate each platform on use case coverage, integrations, cost, ergonomy, technology and how future-proof the solution was. They chose the due diligence module of the provider that scored the highest. This solution allowed the team to automate administrative processes and increase the number of third parties they could onboard and actively monitor. It also gave the company the option to grow into GAN Integrity’s integrated compliance platform.

Positive Compliance Outcomes
After implementing the due diligence model, the hospitality group enjoyed four positive outcomes in a short span of time:

1. A quick and seamless implementation process
When implementing new software, change management is often a concern, but the provider assisted in a fluid transition. The company transitioned from manual processes and were able to get up and running on the due diligence platform with ease.

2. SAPIN II compliance
An essential piece of SAPIN II compliance is technology to record and manage third-party data. Implementing the due diligence solution was a critical piece to becoming compliant with the regulation. A single place of record not only organizes all third-party data but could also help prevent fines in the future.

3. Automated administrative functions
With the new module, the compliance team was able to expanded its capacity and bandwidth without increasing head-count. The platform allowed them to automate repetitive functions and rely on the software to organize all of their third-party data in a central and easily accessible location.

4. A more strategic compliance function
Once the compliance functions became automated, the company’s small compliance team could focus less on the administrative functions and focus more on the strategic decisions needed to create a resilient program. Now the team can look at the data the platform provides on their third parties and easily see the big picture.

A Partner in Compliance
Hospitality management organizations never have a dull moment. Staff must attend to innumerable responsibilities, while also ensuring that compliance details are not overlooked, but some organizations have small teams and few resources with which to perform their function. A well-researched due diligence solution can help these teams by automating processes and enabling compliance with the ever-changing and complex regulatory landscape.