Speeki are experts at managing large global management system certification projects across multiple regions

Our global clients typically have one management system that has been implemented globally in each country. It also means they have one certification, and multiple countries/sites included in that certification. Our focus is then on our first principle, architect globally and implement locally. It means that we need to build our certification solution with this in mind and ensure that we are all in sync with how this global management system approach impacts our audit programme.

Using an anti-bribery management system as an example, the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) at corporate is typically the executive sponsor of the certification initiative. While there is often one region that is pushing more for certification because of a local business need, the CCO is heavily involved. Our principle is that we are supporting both, the CCO and also the regional or country compliance functions in each country.  Alignment across all of these groups with our audit team is essential for success. Speeki is globally focused. Most of our competitors have country offices with their own P&L's and compete across their vast empires to add more days to audits to increase revenue.

A critical component of the certification process is the audit team on the Speeki side. We commit to auditors for your three-year certification cycle. We believe our principle of transparency on 'named' auditors. You should know who these auditors are and you should be comfortable that they meet our competency requirements.  We should commit that as far as possible your team is fixed for the three-year period. This builds knowledge, experience, trust and efficiency.

We have seen audits by competitors poorly managed.  Arriving at locations where all employees work from home, being unable to access buildings, unable to connect to systems, auditors assigned at the last minute, travel delays, just to name a few mistakes. We take the planning seriously and include as the leader of all planning initiatives the lead auditor, the actual leaders the audits. Most competitors assign project management to a call centre in a low-cost jurisdiction and are totally disconnected from reality and the audit team.

Delivering a global certification to a global client is not easy. You need to know how to manage that audit as certain issues will be relevant at corporate but not relevant at a local level. As a simple example, there is no point asking process 'design' questions locally when it is a global policy. Verifying 'implementation' of a process makes more sense at a local level. While this is a simple example, the principles are complex to manage unless you really understand how the company works you already understand the status of the global issues (even if you were not involved in that audit).

It is likely that a global company with a global audit will need a multi-auditor team. At Speeki we tend to keep our audit team very tight;  A small group that communicates very well amongst themselves led by the lead auditor. Our competitors will just assign someone locally to 'go in and do the audit'. That local auditor (assuming they are even an employee, which is unlikely) are often disconnected, cover the same ground as other audits in global and follow their own approach. They have often no visibility on other country feedback and are totally disconnected. We never take this approach. Frankly, our clients would rather incur the travel costs for one of our experts to fly to the location rather than bring in an outsider that has no knowledge of the company and who was not otherwise engaged in the audit.

To make this process work, there needs to be expert communication. This needs to happen across the audit team but also across the audit team to the client at a local level and at a corporate level. While this should go without saying, our experience of our competitors is quite the opposite. In our view, communication is one of our key principles.

Our findings are fact based and evidence based. They must be clear and well drafted. They must articulate clearly the global vs. local element of the finding and be clear to the team on knowing how to address the finding and improve their system.

One of our key principles is supporting the board an audit committee with their role as oversight of the management system. Like all external auditors of financial and non-financials, our engagement at the governance level is important and we strive to build these relationships.