The era of Assurance 4.0: Assuring assets and management systems

Businesses face a rapidly changing world, with a heightened focus on ESG considerations, supply chain complexity and evolving cybersecurity threats. These powerful new trends have combined with more traditional risks – across assets, people and systems – to create a new era of risk management. We call it the era of Assurance 4.0.  

Over the course of the year, LRQA’s Chief Commercial Officer, Stuart Kelly, will dive into the biggest challenges businesses are facing within this new era, starting with our first episode: ‘Assuring assets and management systems’. Listen to find out more.

Transcript

So hello everyone to our lovely listeners across the globe. A warm welcome back to the Future in Focus podcast brought to you by LRQA. My name is Holly Johnston. I'm the Global External Communications Manager for LRQA. But as always, I am not alone. And it's my special guest, actually, that I'm really keen to introduce. And that is Stuart Kelly, our Chief Commercial Officer. Welcome, Stuart. How are you? 

I'm good, Holly. Thanks. And thanks for the very exciting welcome. You're building me up to something more exciting than even I thought it could be. So great to be here with you today.  

Excellent, no pressure. Now actually it's your first time on this podcast, I believe, which will change from now on. I'll be getting you back as a regular before you know it. But as it is your first time, can I just take the opportunity to ask you to introduce yourself to our audience briefly, perhaps a little bit about your background? I swear I can hear just a subtle, slight Scottish accent there. Just a subtle one. So what's your role and what's your team's role? 

Yeah, sure. Excellent. Sure. So, yeah, Chief Commercial Officer sounds a very grand title, but essentially I'm responsible for making sure that we are in the right position to enable our clients to do the business they want to do, making sure that we give them the products and service that they need to grow their businesses. Essentially, that's my job in simple terms. My background, I started life as a government inspector many, many years ago and realised that the pace of government was not for me. I needed to be a little bit different. faster and more, invigorated, I guess, and more challenged. And I moved into private industry and I've worked in industries from retail to hospitality to cleaning chemicals. And essentially the last 25 to 30 years of my life have been spent with global brands building and managing and delivering their risk management programs, mainly in supply chain, but also at the front end where they've got stores and often to consumers, but predominantly in the supply chain and just really keeping them safe, keeping them legal, keeping them compliant and ensuring that they can carry on with their day to day business without worrying about the consequences of challenges in that supply chain. So that that's, that's my kind of pocket history from working in casinos, leisure clubs, hotels, restaurants, right through to, modern day, I guess, and working with global brands.

 I love that, thanks Stuart. So let's dive in with a few questions, but just briefly from me, let me set the scene for our listeners today. So, we are in the era of Assurance 4. 0, otherwise known as the new era of risk management. And it's defined by three global trends that business is trying to respond to. That's ESG considerations, so environmental, social and governance. It's supply chain complexity and the need for cybersecurity maturity. Now, combine that with traditional risks across assets, people and systems, and you've suddenly got a whole host of challenges that I know our clients are coming to us for support with.  So this podcast episode is part of a mini-series with yourself, Stuart, where we'll dive into each of those client challenges, which are: assuring assets and management systems, our topic for today. Then next we have achieving product integrity, sourcing responsibly, navigating the energy transition and achieving net zero. And lastly, strengthening cyber security maturity.  So as I say, today is all about assuring assets and management systems. And let's ease our way in here, Stuart. To you, to LRQA, what exactly do we mean by that? 

I think it's about making sure that businesses are trading safely and legally and able to meet their commitments to their customers. That's essentially what it's about. And it's a back in the day, it was probably taken as a license to trade. And I think still today, there are a number of businesses that have management systems in place because it's a prerequisite of them getting an order from, you know, their customers at work. But there are increasingly a number of businesses that see the benefit in having You know, the right management systems in place the right level of assurance because it is driving quality. It is driving performance. It is driving efficiency and effectiveness to their business, and they're able then to pass on that commercialism into the pricing and into their own customers as it were. So I think we're seeing a shift there in terms of, what it's designed to do and how it's being used in the market, particularly with larger businesses and growing businesses because they see it as an enabler. They have confidence in some of the changes they're making across their business. They have confidence in being more agile in kind of, you know, Testing new grounds and new waters on the market has never moved as fast as it is now only it's phenomenally quick. And I think that's a challenge for most businesses. So knowing that they have that robustness that that backbone of stability in the business is a reassurance for.  not only the business, but also the stakeholders and obviously the investors that want to have that comfort that their money is invested in safe hands. 

Absolutely. I love you there linking compliance to stability, but then also agility going from value retention to value creation. I think that's a really important point. So I want to dig a little bit deeper into that. So why is it so important for clients in the era of Assurance 4. 0 in terms of, you know, assuring their assets and management systems, why should they be taking this so seriously and crucially, staying up to date if they're not already? And I'm going to cite an example here that we've now got the world's first AI standard. So that's a huge development in the market. So things are changing very rapidly, as you say, why is it so important and relevant for clients to stay abreast? 

Yeah, I read somewhere, Holly, that we will make more technological advances in the next two years than we have in the last 200 years. And that tells you the pace of change. I, you know, I mentioned briefly at the start that even with my limited Scottish history, I've done a lot of work in supply chains and back in, you know, the 90s, taking a new product to market would take four to five months. We're doing it in four to five weeks now, you know, that is concept to shelf. That's phenomenal and quick. And that means therefore that businesses need to be much more agile and obviously need to have the systems, the processes and the reassurance and what they're doing absolutely in place to make the right decisions. So, you know, businesses are assuring that assets and management systems work for a number of reasons. It is giving them the ability to, you know, to be more responsible and transparent in terms of our supply chain critical, you know, everyone these days is turning a pack over to look at where it came from. What are the ingredients understanding that that product source, you know, what was it grown responsibly? Was it ethical, you know, has it come from a sustainable source? You know, these are these are questions that consumers are asking all of the time now and are actually making Buying decisions based on, it was always priced before and, and, and value, but now it is, is this the right product for my lifestyle and my beliefs? And I think that's great, but it also means that businesses have to be much more transparent and, and not only say something, but be able to prove that what they say is accurate and correct. So I think it gives businesses the ability to be more transparent around that. In my view, it demonstrates a compliance to key stakeholders, particularly industry specific standards where you have some industries where, you know, there are particular standards that are expected, and we've all read in the press around some of the challenges around, you know, companies like Boeing and so on recently. All relevant and linked directly to some of the things we're talking about today, where that backbone that that reassurance that standard is all important to be able to demonstrate to stakeholders and consumers and customers that that you have the right systems and so on in place. I think it also gives reassurance in the product. I think, you know, companies that have that assurance in place are able to demonstrate a high quality, consistent, robust product time and time again. They have less likelihood of failure, less likelihood of product recalls, they have systems in place to deal with these things, you know, it doesn't go right all of the time, and we know that companies that are able to demonstrate a really comprehensive way of dealing with failure, dealing with issues in a professional manner, actually bounce back stronger because they learn from it, and again, management systems and having that assurance in place helps with this, the whole process of deep diving into these challenges and making sure we learn from them and you avoid them happening again in the future. And I think, you know, the other thing, which is taken for granted, but you should not underestimate the difficulty and actually managing the legal requirements of a business in the number of countries that businesses are now operating in, you know, the world has become so small and so available for everyone that, you know, most businesses that are of any size or standard that you know, the brand are operating in multiple legal jurisdictions. Each one with different priorities, each one with different legal, you know, statutes, each one with even different labelling requirements and therefore having that robust management process and system in place enables you to deal with that and enables you to be ahead of the game essentially and give, you know, More importantly, reassurance for your customers that you're in control. 

So many good points there, Stuart. You know, driving trust and transparency for stakeholders, consumers being you know, a really important stakeholder group with heightened awareness now, concepts of resilience and the interconnectedness of our global supply chains. Brilliant points there. Thank you. And the beauty of talking to you, Stuart, about this is that you and your teams have such direct exposure to clients and to wider businesses in the market across sizes, sectors, geographies. So let's have an honest conversation here. What are some of the pain points that businesses are struggling with in terms of assuring assets and management systems?

It's a great question, Holly. And I think it's probably, and I'll try and give some specifics here, but it's probably going down the route of how the scope has crept bigger and bigger over the last, you know, number of years. And if you take the example of a technical director who is traditionally dealing with quality and with the management systems and the assets that actually, you know, assure that quality in the product, they are not now thinking only about product integrity. They're not only thinking about the process of getting raw materials to the finished article and getting it on shelves or to the end consumer. They're also now having to think about Where did the product come from?  You know, was it sustainable?  Was it actually developed for me? Was it all material harvested or was it, you know, produced in an ethical way with responsible labour in place? These, these challenges, they've always been around, but they didn't exist in terms of being real and in front of the companies that they are now. And I think those are, you know, those are. expansions to the role that people are struggling to cope with because they have a lack of visibility. Most companies will know their suppliers one level down. But when you start getting to level two and level three, then some of these raw materials are coming from, you know, factories, places, you know, parts of the world that they don't even know they're coming from, because it's beyond the level of knowledge and comprehension that you have in their business. And now the world is telling them, you need to know this. You need to be able to demonstrate to me as a consumer, me as your end customer, that you know where all of this is coming from, that it has been sourced ethically, that it has been, you know, developed responsibly, that there is no slave labour within your supply chain, that all of these questions now are taken for granted, that you have the answers for. And a lot of businesses don't, right. They don't have that visibility because they've never had to do it. They've gone to one level. They know their tier one suppliers brilliantly, but they don't know anymore. And they're struggling to really get that information and be able to unpick the spider's web of their supply chain, essentially. And then finally, you know, we want one of the great innovations of the last kind of 2025 years has been the World Wide Web, the use of data. The Internet and the ability to transfer that data from one place to another seamlessly. But that brings its own problems. And now, not only is the technical director thinking around product integrity, which they've always done, but also the responsible sourcing, the ethical compliance and the sustainability journey of those raw materials. They're now also thinking about cybersecurity. And when I pass this data seamlessly from one supplier to another, when I have them, you know, API things into my business, when I'm looking for metrics from them on compliance and my KPIs, I'm opening doors  all around the world to, you know, people that want to access my cyber systems, and that has become a very real threat to everyone around the world. And most businesses, you know, typically bring a supplier on board, they do a set of checks, they could be really robust, but they do it once. That supplier is then linked into their systems, their processes, their facilities, and the supplier is changing. There's smaller businesses that are typically more agile. They're typically then changing their processes, their systems, their IT capabilities on a regular basis. And, you know, there are back doors and windows being left open all over the world into major organizations from a cyber perspective. And now, some of the people that we've been dealing with through all the years focused on product integrity are turning their attention to different risks because it's part of their supply chain. So the pace of the change in the world means that everyone is trying to catch up and will never catch up because when they get to today's problems, tomorrow's problems will already have arisen and therefore it's a continual game of trying to stay as close to the challenges as you can and therefore businesses are having to make decisions quicker than ever before. They're having to rely on external partners like LRQA more than ever before and I think that's the That's the challenge for some of our clients is to accept that we are an extension of their team. We are a true partner rather than just someone that is contracted to provide a service or a product to them because they need us to bring to them the knowledge of the industry. The knowledge of the problems that we're solving for other people that they might not have faced yet, but they're going to, they will, and therefore it's a trust thing. It's having the relationship with, you know, as I say, LRQA is one company, there are numerous other ones out there, but having, having that trust that enables you to ask them for their opinion, for their help, for their support and their advice. It changes the relationship from, you know, someone that is a contracted service provider to a true partner that will help you drive your business forward. And that's what I think a lot of our clients are struggling with. 

Thanks, Stuart. Such a good point about, you know, that combination between on the ground expertise combined with data driven insights. And I'm so glad you mentioned data because you just simply can't have a conversation about any type of risk management without data. You know, in the era of Assurance 4. 0, full stop, so thank you for diving in on that. And I'd like to flip my previous question now, if I can. So, you know, we've asked about clients’ pain points in terms of assuring assets and management systems, but where are we seeing examples of success or best practice?  

Yeah, I great question again. Let me try and summarise it in a, which I'm not very good at doing, as you'll know, in a few words. I think where we're seeing success is, you mentioned data, and, and actually using that in the right way, where companies are trusting the data, and what it's telling them is where we're seeing success. There's a lot, everyone has data. Every company has it. The problem is they've got too much and they don't know what to do with it. And it's not always in a way that we can actually use it because it comes from different sources. It doesn't necessarily tie in together. Everyone's got data leads. They're trying to get it all into the right, you know, kind of a shape that they can use. And then when they actually get to that point, because it is so much data. They don't use it effectively, and they don't believe in what it's telling them. So where we're seeing success, I think, is where customers are combining the traditional with the new. They're taking their standard methodologies of, you know, audit, inspection, you know, internal kind of intervention programmes that they've got, the information and the knowledge they get from that, and actually marrying that together with what the data is telling them, and using that to make insightful decisions. That's where success is coming from. But a lot of companies have all the data and don't trust in what it's telling them. They don't actually change how they're operating as a result of what the data is predicting. They almost wait for the data prediction to come true and then say, “Oh, right. It was good. It was right. That's good because we can see that the data is beginning to tell us something and it's taking too long for them to actually be proactive around it.” Where success is coming, where companies are. Developing and building and providing that level of reassurance and confidence to their stakeholders, their shareholders, their board, and they're forgetting the investment in their business to move forward is where they're actually acting on what the data is telling them, and they're trusting in their instincts, and therefore they're making preventative decisions before they become problems for business. So I think the combination of data, and the insight the data gives you with the traditional methods and practices is where that sweet spot is right now, that businesses that are doing that are pivoting faster, they are maturing quicker, and they're probably gaining those benefits in the market.  

So let's turn to practical steps for our listeners today, you know, compliance with industry standards, regulations and legislation can provide access to markets and can just demonstrate industry best practice. But where should businesses start? You know, what should they do if they think this is something that they need help with? What solutions do we offer? And I want us to kind of consider both businesses that are taking their first steps on this journey with assurance around assets and management systems, but also those wanting to take risk management beyond the audit. 

Yeah. Okay. I think where, where a lot of businesses fail is they don't ask for support from companies like LRQA at the beginning. They sometimes see LRQA or other bodies as the provider of a certificate or the provider of an audit that then gives them an outcome at the end, and they make the decision on the journey and the path without actually speaking to someone like us who can actually advise them better. I, so we typically get companies coming to us saying, “Hi, can you, can you give us a price for, you know, 9001 quality management system across our business?” And the first question we ask is why, why are you wanting this? What are you trying to achieve with it? Because yeah, I can give you a price and I can give you a 9001 quality management and you have a certificate on your wall, but is it actually helping you do what you want to do as a business? Or is it a decision that you've made? probably cocooned in the walls of your business without fully appreciating where the market is going, what challenges is it facing and how do you get ahead of those challenges. So the first thing I would say to any business that is thinking about going on the journey of assuring assets or management systems. Come and talk, explain the journey you're on, be quite open about that, and then select the right partner for you that can help you with that journey. It's not a one time  certificate. It's not a one time audit. It can be, but you're not getting the best out of your partner if you do that. If you actually talk about your aspirations and your journey as a business, then someone like LRQA will walk with you hand in hand on that journey. They will make sure that you are ready when each stage of that journey comes up, and it might not be the path that you've chosen. What we bring to the table is experience of your industry, experience of assuring assets and management systems that you don't have, quite frankly.  I, and I mean that in the most respectful way, and therefore we can probably look at things with a slightly different lens that might make you better. Make it happen faster, save you money. Make you more robust and certainly place you well in your market to be ahead of your competitors. But it is a two way conversation and a lot of our customers are coming to us with a one way request and opening that door to say, guys, tell me what you're trying to do and we will go We will help you achieve a quicker, better, faster, cheaper is, is the challenge. So, you know, trust that partnership, trust what people tell you. And I'm in sales. So, you know, we, we, we always tell people that we will be a trusted partner, but I always say to customers, trust is a two way thing, right? You know, you go on a first date, you don't trust that person right away. You're not married to the person. It takes time to build that relationship. It takes time to trust. It takes time to. Appreciate what each other brings to the partnership, you know, go into it with that kind of intention in mind and you'll get more out of it without a shadow of a doubt as you walk through the coming months and years. So come and talk about your aspirations, come and talk about your challenges and what you're facing and we can bring a much wider view on the market, on the world, on what's changing, on the different idiosyncrasies of each of the different markets that we operate in for you to consider. We can bring a much bigger landscape to, to your thinking and, you know, build that trust from day one. 

You know, I think you're the first guest we've had on this podcast to make that unique comparison between risk management and first dates, and I absolutely love it.  We promised a new way to think about things.

 Well, there you go. Assurance 4. 0 and first dates all in one, Holly. You know, I aim to please. 

No, that's wonderful, Stuart. Open communication, expanding mindsets. around risks, explaining the journey you're on, pursuing solution-based partnerships. I think that's a wonderful message for our listeners today. But I want to give you one final opportunity to share any kind of lasting message that you might want to leave our listeners with today, if nothing else. 

What can I say that I've not already said? The world is changing. It's faster than ever before. Businesses have to be more agile, more resilient. more forward thinking to survive in this market. And to do that, you need to partner with someone that can bring that external expertise into your thinking. And therefore choose your partner wisely, make sure that, you know, they are in the right place and have the right ability to bring value to the relationship. Otherwise it's a one way street and not a two way street. But, you know, my, my kind of lasting plea to any listener is talk to your provider, talk about your journey.  Share your business plans and get them to engage on that journey with you because that is where the true value comes. That is where one and one equals three in your market. Our job is to make you as a business more successful. That makes us successful. So, you know, trust in that relationship. and build a partnership from day one. That will be my lasting message.  

Stuart, I want to offer my heartfelt thanks for your time today, your insight, and also to our listeners, thank you once again. And please do visit our homepage on Spotify to stay up to date with new releases. And to find out more about LRQA services, please visit lrqa.com. Thanks, Stuart.

 Thank you, Holly.