Your brand is only as reliable and trustworthy as the quality of products you put out into the market.
Without a robust product compliance program in place, the integrity of your brand is bound to be compromised sooner or later.
Our complimentary eBook ‘How to Build Systems to Ensure Product Compliance in Large Supply Chains’ lays the foundation for building a robust compliance program to help you avoid costly mishaps and begin overcoming compliance issues today.
Effectively managing growing supply chain complexities is something that most purchasing managers/importers deal with on a day to day basis.
As your brand grows compliance issues you never knew were there (nor were prepared for) may rear their ugly head, and it’s up to you to begin pinpointing issues and plugging the holes your profits will fall through, before the consumers of today tear them open even wider.
Ensuring product compliance starts and ends with one thing:
A robust compliance program.
Product Compliance is Key To Your Success
Effectively managing growing supply chain complexities is something that most purchasing managers/importers deal with on a day to day basis.
As your brand grows compliance issues you never knew were there (nor were prepared for) may rear their ugly head, and it’s up to you to begin pinpointing issues and plugging the holes your profits will fall through, before the consumers of today tear them open even wider.
Ensuring product compliance starts and ends with one thing:
A robust compliance program.
Building a compliance program
A working compliance program addresses the rules, standards, regulations and requirements that your company or brand sets for its suppliers. These standards will create the accountability within the supply chain that consumers today are looking for. At this stage if you are pondering on the necessity and importance of compliance, take a look at this: In 2007, Mattel had to recall 1.5 million lead covered toys due to negligence. The company ended up having to pay a $12.3 million settlement with another $2.3 million in civil penalties for violating a lead paint ban.“Can your company afford a mistake like this?”
‘How to Build Systems to Ensure Product Compliance in Large Supply Chains’
- Why compliance is necessary now more than ever
- How to turn your compliance challenges into opportunities for growth
- The specific audits that are needed for compliance in your supply chain
- How to go about creating a compliance culture for your brand
Let’s take a look at what Walmart did; They created what they call the Sustainability Index, which is essentially a scorecard for suppliers to be reported on from various social and environmental production factors.
Walmart has said that by the end of 2017 that 70% of its products will come from suppliers who participate through this Index, and as a benefits they will be endorsed as a sustainable partner and proud Walmart supplier.
Solutions
Supply chain compliance is an important issue to address, with many local retail brands realising that compliance needs to be a top priority to be achieved in order to achieve a globally competitive advantage in the market.
So how do we go about achieving just that?
1. Supply chain visibility – This refers to the data visibility made available within your supply chain; from where your raw materials come from, to your factory’s technical operations right through to your .jpg)
is also a dedicated IT team to ensuring the safety of the software and only API employees are allowed to make modifications to the platform.
Many of the compliance complexities that arise are in the collection and gathering of all the necessary documentation. Many manufacturers, importers and retailers today are still operating on outdated systems like spreadsheets, creating unreliable data and documentation, which creates an almost insurmountable task trying to maintain the information for each product reference. 
you insight into your compliance status whenever you need it. There are also progress charts allowing you actionable insight into timelines and your supplier progress. This solution is also able to store all your documents for up to 10 years, ensuring your documents are safely stored for any future reference. 
The quality of a product can be defined in many ways and is almost always dependent on your specific consumer and their definition of quality for your specific item. So in that light, you will need to know exactly what your consumer is looking for to create the quality your brand is looking to achieve.
When a consumer sets out to look for a quality product, they want to feel as though they have paid less than what the actual product is worth, the quality of the product far surpassing the amount they ended up paying. Fulfilling the need to exceed the consumer’s expectations, this is what true quality is all about.
If fulfilling the need to meet your consumer’s expectations is at the top of your company’s agenda, is it not essential for your brand’s products to meet a level of quality that does just that? Let me leave you pondering that for a bit.
In attempting to understand your customer’s definition of quality, it will be important to note that fulfilling consumer expectation and experience forms a part of that definition.
Let me give you an example; If a consumer orders a product that has met and passed all quality tests it needed to meet, that product for all intents and purposes is a quality item. But, if the order arrives later than promised or arrives with a missing screw or the incorrect color, the consumer may not define this product as an item of value and quality.
Striving for product quality is a stems right from the raw materials used, to the way in which it arrives to your customer, therefore every step needs to be taken into consideration.
craze of fidget spinners and, where 200, 000 of these spinners have been recalled due to it 
they want to know where its raw materials were sourced, how it was made, who made it and what its level of quality is. They ask themselves whether or not your product will be an investment in their lives.
The key here will be to know your target market, know your consumer. If you do not know what they want, you will struggle to be their go-to brand; you will lose out on their brand evangelism and praise affecting your bottom line
“Is this the type of brand and product you wish to create?”
Retailers today are under so much pressure with the current supply and demand of products, that quality and/or compliance is not always a priority.
“But, it should be!”
Bad quality and non-compliance both mean that your brand is at an unnecessarily high risk with regards to meeting regulations and your reputation. It will be worth all the hard yards that you put in from the creation and design to the manufacturing and distribution of your products. This will help mitigate unnecessary risk, saving you money and precious time.
They initially had committed to making this transition by 2020, but they ended up meeting their target 3 years early! This is one great commitment to the realm of renewable energy.
Apart from this they are currently investing loads of money and time into finding alternatives to plastic for their famous building blocks.
As consumers increasingly dictate how manufacturers design and make toys, the power of adopting CSR and green initiatives as a part of your competitive strategy will have global results for your brand.
What do I mean by this?
The toy quality management system you choose to adopt will provide a framework for which CSR is able to be strategically implemented for your brand. Lego is a prime example of this. Whilst they are a children’s toy brand, they have committed fully to sourcing a more environmentally friendly plastic for their iconic plastic blocks. Even though they have not yet found a suitable alternative, their commitment and investment in trying to, puts them at the forefront of an initiative consumers the world over want to see and be a part of.
So I put the question to you…
