The Sales Manager’s heart dropped. The news from the compliance team and legal counsel was that the organization could not sign the business deal they had been working on over the past six months because the buyer was matched to an entity on one of the many government denied parties watch lists. If only they had been able to see this earlier in the sales cycle.
As it turns out, companies can, indeed, spot dubious deals the moment a prospect walks in the door, sparing sales the pain of ruing the expensive time and resources spent on pursuing a potential opportunity that isn’t going to pan out
The way to achieve this identification in a systematized manner is by the continuous screening of transactions at the lead, contact and account level against sanctions lists directly in the Salesforce application. It is worth noting, though, that this can also be accomplished with other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms, not just Salesforce.
Key Takeaways
- Screening for denied, debarred and blocked entities is a mission critical objective for any organization.
- Failure to have a systematic approach to denied party screening can lead to wasted effort, increased risk, sanctions violations, and the possibility of fines.
- Screening for denied parties within Salesforce is key for effectively managing third party risks and complying with international trade regulations.
- The ability to proactively identify ‘bad actors’ at multiple stages of the sales cycle – at the lead, contact and account levels – helps organizations boost sales productivity and prevents them from forming / maintaining prohibited relationships.
- As a Salesforce user you can easily meet your compliance objectives with Descartes automated and integrated denied party screening solutions.
Why Screening for Restricted Parties is Important
Screening for denied, debarred and blocked entities is a mission critical objective for any organization. But because compliance regulations are stricter and more complex than they have ever been, staying on the straight and narrow is no longer the responsibility of a handful of people in the export compliance and legal departments.
Today, compliance is the responsibility that involves everyone in the company. Since this subject is about helping to ensure national security interests are maintained, it covers controlled technology, sales and marketing, mergers and acquisitions, financial transactions, human resources, access to corporate facilities and networks not only sanctions and embargoes.
Official ‘Know Your Customer’ guidance is provided, such as the Bureau of Industry and Security’s red flag indicators which consist of a checklist that includes things like the buyer can be found on a denied party list, they cannot provide sufficient information about end use, they want to pay in cash when financing is the norm, among others.
For these red flag indicators, the people best positioned to quickly identify the so-called ‘bad actors’ of the world are in Sales.
Benefits of Screening Throughout the Sales Cycle
Organizations across industries have to make sure they are not entering into business with a denied or restricted party, both at home and abroad. It’s not just about regulatory compliance, it’s also about preventing operational disruptions, penalties and adverse media coverage.
For Sales, this means being able to identify denied parties throughout the sales cycle–and at the lead, contact and account levels–because additions to government watch lists are continuous. This maximizes sales’ time on legitimate opportunities.
Top three Reasons why Salesforce is Key for 3rd Party Compliance
Properly integrated, screening directly in Salesforce extends the effectiveness of the organization’s compliance initiatives. Here are the top three reasons to be screening in Salesforce:
- Identification of restricted parties with automated screening when the prospect first enters the sales cycle, significantly reducing time spent on chasing bad leads;
- Detection of ‘bad actors’ at multiple points of the sales cycle with automated rescreening to make sure on a continual basis that there are no issues with the leads being followed-up on; and
- Maintaining an automated audit trail of screening and compliance activities for reporting and due diligence purposes.
Read our white paper to get more detailed information about Performing Effective and Comprehensive Denied Party Screening Within the Salesforce CRM.
How can Descartes Help?
Descartes is a provider of an industry-leading suite of denied party screening and 3rd party risk management solutions, including seamless integrations within Salesforce, sometimes in under an hour.
Descartes Visual Compliance solutions are flexible and modular, allowing organizations to pick the specific and exact functionality and content they need for their particular compliance needs and scale up later as and when necessary.
Find out what our customers are saying about Descartes Denied Party Screening on G2 – an online third-party business software review platform. Additionally, you can read this essential buyer’s guide to denied party screening to help you select a solution that fits your needs.
