Recent Aravo Survey Shows that Only 15% of Companies Have Begun Reasonable Country of Origin Inquiries
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 29, 2013 — Aravo Solutions, Inc., the leading provider of cloud-based Supplier Lifecycle Management (SLM) solutions and risk services, recently conducted a survey to evaluate the challenges and readiness of companies to meet Dodd-Frank conflict minerals due diligence and reporting requirements. Participants included financial, compliance, internal counsel and procurement executives who manage supply chain and enterprise risk. The results of the survey show that while reporting rules have been published by the SEC, most companies have yet to begin the required reasonable country of origin inquiry (RCOI) process, putting them at risk of failing to meet the necessary reporting deadlines.
Conflict Minerals due diligence and reporting requirements continue to be an area of confusion as businesses try to assess their exposure to the regulatory rules contained in the Dodd-Frank legislation. Faced with the need to identify products that may contain the listed metals, evaluate manufacturing processes that potentially rely on their use and determine the sources across multiple tiers of their supply chain, companies are increasingly looking externally to service and solution providers to help them navigate these new challenges.
As part of its conflict minerals education and solution deployment efforts, Aravo gathered information from customers, other companies and market experts across industries in an effort to identify the key challenges and approaches that global enterprises are facing in their compliance initiatives. Key findings included:
The number one concern affecting Dodd-Frank Section 1502 reporting readiness is the lack of progress being made to-date in conducting RCOI’s or the steps outlined in the OECD Due Diligence framework. Only 15% of those surveyed have begun either of these steps.
While the procurement organization owns conflict minerals reporting compliance in 25% of the companies, the rest have fragmented responsibility across legal, finance, sustainability, and production organizations. This lack of central ownership contributes to compliance gridlock and the potential to miss reporting due dates.
“As we work with companies preparing for conflict minerals identification and reporting, we clearly see the need for a common approach to RCOI that effectively implements the OECD framework a well as the EICC due diligence template,” says Robert Shecterle, VP-Marketing, Aravo. “Using proven best-in-class conflict minerals compliance tools, templates and solutions to automate the collection and management of required supplier compliance information can provide the necessary information and significantly accelerate program deployment to reduce regulatory exposure.”
Aravo’s recent webinar, “Conflict Minerals: Will You Be Ready for 2014 Reporting?“, discussed examples of how companies are implementing programs and using technology to track and manage on-going Dodd-Frank compliance requirements.
The world’s best-run businesses utilize Aravo’s Cloud-based Supplier Lifecycle Management solutions and Supplier Risk Services to find and manage trading partner relationships, reduce supply chain risk, ensure global regulatory compliance and lower the cost of managing suppliers by up to 72%. Aravo launched the market’s first SIM/SLM solution in 2004 and has been the leading innovator in the space ever since. Customers such as General Electric, Accenture, and Boston University rely on Aravo to manage information and processes for over 2 million global suppliers. Aravo is based in San Francisco, with offices in Chicago, Dallas, New York, Portland, Monterrey, Mexico and Ahmedabad, India, and is backed by over $50 million in investment from Cisco Systems, Big Sky Partners, and others.
