Company Expands Global Use of Aravo Solutions Across Business Units to Ensure Best-Practice Due Diligence Processes
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 23, 2013 — Aravo Solutions, Inc., the leading provider of cloud-based Supplier Lifecycle Management (SLM) solutions and supplier risk services, announced today that a Fortune 500 Top 5 Pharmaceutical customer has elected to expand its use of Aravo Solutions globally to ensure best-practice due diligence for compliance with the Federal Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The decision was the result of a successful North American deployment that helped it reduce its risk of FCPA enforcement actions due to third party intermediary conduct.
The FCPA prohibits companies from giving money, gifts or anything of value to obtain or retain international business. As a result, businesses must keep accurate records and maintain clear and adequate controls for employees and trading partners (including suppliers, third party intermediaries and subsidiaries) to protect against improper payments or influence. SEC and DOJ investigations around FCPA violations continue grow, with the pharmaceutical industry being near the top of the target list, and aggressive enforcement of the FCPA means the risk of multi-million dollar fines and criminal prosecution has never been higher.
As part of the global roll-out of Aravo Enterprise™, the company will automate and streamline ongoing FCPA oversight of employee, supplier, third party intermediary and subsidiary relationships in over 30 countries. Global business units will deploy best practice processes around key FCPA compliance activities: compliance-based intermediary and supplier selection, FCPA program due diligence verification, and on-going compliance monitoring/audit management. Leveraging Aravo, the company will establish a lower-cost, higher-quality compliance process through a single system of record for intermediary and supplier information, automated activity reporting related to credentials, and a consistent and repeatable assessment process.
“FCPA due diligence continues to be a major compliance issue across industries, with large fines and criminal prosecutions for violators,” said Allen Thompson, VP-Sales, Aravo. “Our customers look to Aravo’s industry-leading compliance and third party intermediary information management solutions, combined with our deep knowledge of industry regulatory issues like FCPA, to ensure global regulatory compliance, reduce the risk of fines and imprisonment, and lower the cost of program management and administration.”
About Aravo
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.
