Slavery and Supply Chains. What Companies Need To Be Concerned With

As the complexity of supply chains grows, when companies expand into new markets, understanding what suppliers you work with is essential for making socially responsible decisions. The increase of many new opportunities lies outside in other global markets and with every opportunity comes with it the potential of working with many different suppliers, therefore increasing your supply chain. In the end, how well do you know your supply chain? How do you know your supply chain is conducting business ethically and employing workers to work at an acceptable standard? Unless you have direct communication and enhanced visibility with your supply chain, the chances of unethical business practices happening is very likely. No company is immune to issues such as these. From power house multi-billion dollar companies to smaller global organizations, supply chains have the ability to house these un-ethical labor practices and it is up to the organizations to do their due diligence to prevent this.

With more information readily available and the open communication that is enabled between consumer and company, issues of human trafficking for labor and slavery are issues companies definitely want to avoid. Knowing with whom you do business with is key when avoiding issues such as slavery and forced labor.

Companies consistently try to find ways to comply with regulations that are set fourth by global organizations, to prevent modern day slavery. The problem is control over their supply chains, as they grow larger, and having it quickly becoming a communication error and not knowing what your supplier is doing. If this is a pain point for your organization and would like additional resources please click here.