Ed. Note-I was recently interviewed on Best Seller TV about my book, The Compliance Handbook: A Guide to Operationalizing Your Compliance Program, Second Edition. This video of the interview appears with the permission of Best Seller TV.
On this episode of Best Seller T,V Tom Fox, author of The Compliance Handbook: A Guide to Operationalizing Your Compliance Program, Second Edition, addresses what best practices can be put in place for companies to run more efficiently and generate more profits. Fox, who began working in the compliance industry in 2007, was a lawyer by trade, but felt compelled to switch careers because he saw an opportunity to help make a difference and help corporations be more efficient. Fox says the United Nations estimates that $3 trillion are lost annually to corruption. He saw the opportunity to help corporations build first-class best practice compliance programs by complying with the law and run the business side a lot smoother.
Compliance is setting up systems, processes, and procedures that comply with a law and/or regulation. With laws constantly changing, Fox wrote the second edition of the book to instruct readers on the latest compliance laws that might affect them on a regular basis. Since his first edition in 2018, there has been a 40 percent change in laws, especially after the SEC and the Department of Justice made significant changes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The pandemic also helped exacerbate many more changes.
The book is for a wide variety of readers, starting with compliance professionals, laying out a blueprint on how to build world-class compliance programs or enhance currently existing programs. The book is also for c-suite and senior executives to help educate them on the benefits of compliance and how to stay out of trouble. The compliance industry has evolved significantly in the last decade or so. Fox adds that right now, the industry is more data-driven and, “When you have data, you can actually improve business efficiency.” He continues to say that the backbone of compliance is internal controls, which are financial controls, but are not often called that. If you look at them from a compliance perspective and tweak them enough to have both controls, you can make enough headroom in making a company run more efficiently, leading to greater profitability.
