By James Junkin, Strategic Advisory Board Chair at Veriforce and Josh Ortega, VP Safety, Sustainability & Procurement at Veriforce.
There is a growing divide between compliance, procurement, and safety teams — one that can lead to avoidable risks, inefficiencies and costly consequences. All too often, safety incidents and compliance failures arise when decisions are made without fully understanding the risks involved. Why? Because these teams are often pursuing different, sometimes conflicting, objectives. While procurement may prioritise cost savings, safety and compliance teams focus on risk management.
Consequently, suppliers are sometimes chosen based on price alone — only for hidden risks to emerge later. All it takes is one poorly vetted contractor with a weak safety record to trigger unexpected training costs, regulatory penalties, or project delays. Initial cost savings quickly disappear in the face of preventable issues and long‑term consequences.
Aligning Key Functions
For organisations to operate efficiently and manage risk effectively, procurement, compliance, and safety teams must stop working in isolation. The good news, however, is that there’s a clear path forward in adopting a total cost management approach, which helps businesses to balance critical cost considerations with compliance, quality, safety, and long‑term sustainability.
Leading organisations treat these teams as equal partners in decision‑making – each forming a side of a triangle essential to the business’s structural integrity. Each are critical to the integrity of the whole. In this model:
Procurement leads supplier selection and relationship management, applying rigorous pre‑qualification criteria that cover financial health, safety performance, and more.
Safety moves beyond box‑ticking, engaging in audits, collaborating with suppliers during planning, and conducting thorough incident investigations with root cause analysis.
Compliance ensures alignment with both external regulations and internal policies through ongoing oversight.
When these three functions work together, they form a strong, resilient foundation for sustainable operations.
Fostering Positive Change And Collaboration
A truly integrated approach can be the catalyst for meaningful cultural change in supply chain management. By aligning teams around shared standards and centralised information systems, organisations can move beyond lowest‑cost decisions and instead evaluate the true value of each supplier, factoring in long‑term cost, risk, and performance. This shift replaces siloed decision‑making with shared risk ownership, supporting broader goals such as operational resilience, sustainability and responsible growth.
But intentions alone are not enough. Real transformation takes work:
1 Shared standards
The most successful global organisations establish clear, standardised evaluation criteria that allow all departments to view supplier performance through the same lens. This unified foundation fosters collaboration and consistent decision‑making.
2. A Total Cost Approach
Integrated supply chain management empowers businesses to assess all supplier‑related costs and risks. Reviewing historical safety records, compliance histories, financial performance, and ethical considerations helps organisations make smarter, more sustainable choices. When safety and compliance are embedded from the start, not treated as afterthoughts, they become foundational to procurement.
3. Ongoing Monitoring
Continuous audits and performance reviews are essential for identifying potential risks early. Tools like Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOP) can uncover vulnerabilities before they escalate into costly disruptions.
Unified For What’s Next
This integrated approach drives the cultural shift needed to achieve real alignment across teams. Regular cross‑functional meetings bring potential issues to the surface early, while standardised processes ensure safety and compliance are embedded in every procurement decision.
As regulatory complexity and economic pressures grow, organisations can no longer afford to operate in siloes. True progress demands not only practical integration but also top‑down leadership and a shared commitment to collaboration. Those already embracing this model are seeing real results—from more efficient procurement to stronger, more resilient supplier partnerships.
The future belongs to organisations that unite these functions through shared systems, processes and values. By embedding collaboration into company culture and prioritising total cost management, businesses can build supply chains that are not only more resilient and efficient, but also strategic, sustainable, and future‑ready. Ultimately, no department can succeed on its own. Long‑term value is created when every procurement decision is informed by safety and compliance, and when collaboration becomes the norm, and not the exception.
