Navigating F&B Compliance

Érica Justolin is the Legal and Compliance Director at Delly´s Food Service. Érica has 24 years of consolidated experience as a general counselor in corporate, contractual and compliance in F&B industry, easily moving through the different areas of business law. Working for companies invested by private equity funds, Érica has developed profound experience in structuring legal and compliance departments, best practices in the integration of companies and risk management.

Through this article Érica Justolin, Director - Legal and Compliance Erica at Delly’s Food Service talks about the importance of strategic technology adoption and human-centric approach in managing legal and compliance challenges in the F&B industry.

Career Trajectory: From Personal Touch to Tech-Savvy Compliance

When I began my career as a corporate lawyer in medium sized companies, basically personal background, technical knowledge, experience and, of course, “personal touch” to address legal and compliance matters could make a significant difference in my professional path.

However, time has changed the perception of those who seek for legal and compliance advice, which has impacted enormously the job market, demanding compliance professionals to thrive new and less obvious soft skills related to the application of advanced technology to implement risk and compliance programs.

Those professionals who are open to technology new approaches have been more successful in dealing with these trends in the compliance area. Being connected to innovation and technology sectors and learning from other sectors experiences in an empirical way, for example, is something that I´ve been applying throughout my career, which has helped me to understand since the early days that “the called personal touch” would be defied to a different and more complex level.

In addition, restricted budgets have always been a barrier to be overcome in the compliance field and even in more recent years they require creativity and flexibility from compliance professionals to deal with the decision-making process regarding investing in technology tools to support building high-performance teams.

Acknowledging that the state-of-the-art solution will not always be viable releases you to not seek perfection and balances the choice of what really matters to make the difference in the right time. Baby steps toward the future and constant and resilient improvements can be very helpful when implementing new technologies in the compliance sector.

Navigating F&B Compliance: AI, Fraud and Ethical Dilemmas

Automation of processes and electronic document management are no longer cutting-edge technologies for supporting legal, regulatory and compliance professionals in managing the growing challenges of F&B compliance.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) to support compliance activities are in place to defy ethic boundaries and to tease dilemmas from building teams to apply new technologies to mitigate human error over repetitive tasks, intellectual activities or decision-making processes. Since it appears that the limits for artificial intelligence application are still under scrutiny, it´s desirable to avoid the pitfalls of implementing facilities that can lead to legal breaches regarding property rights and leak of corporate data, for example.

Another emerging challenge impacting the effectiveness of F&B compliance is fraud prevention and the use of technology. The availability of free tools to perform wrongdoings and electronic frauds, some of them illegally collecting and treating data from public websites or private databases, generate a challenging environment to prevent financial scams, especially in the e-commerce, requiring companies to invest considerable amounts in cyber security products, fraud prevention and multitasks teams’ formation. The speed in the development of new scams is astonishing and companies of every size and industry are currently vulnerable to financial and reputational risks in exponential scale.

Tech Stack for Delly's: Data-Driven Compliance and M&A Support

M&As (mergers and acquisitions) are one of the growth drivers at Delly´s Food Service. When consolidating and integrating companies, one of the most challenging enablers is the ability to select organize and present data to support decision-making, derive insights and provide measurable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), including in the compliance sector.

For these reasons, the Company invested in implementing a data lake to extract, collect and organize big data from public sources and small data from various softwares and tools used in the business.

This solution, combined with the use of a BI (Business Intelligence) tool to organize and present data, statistics and reports and enable monitoring, has propelled the Company to a higher level of information accuracy, paving the way for the implementation of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning applications.

Another technology stack currently in use, which is widely consolidated in M&As, for instance, is background check platforms to support third-party due diligence. The data is legally collected from public sources organized and presented as reports, providing efficiency in the risk management process. The platform allows continuous monitoring, reduces time spent on repetitive tasks and optimizes the efforts of the teams involved, enabling them to focus on other critical activities.

Compliance in the Digital Age: Balancing Tech and Human Touch

From my perspective, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize F&B Compliance. The range of possible applications is immense, including risk prevention, fraud avoidance, M&As (mergers and acquisitions) operations, third-party due diligence, legal and compliance operations and more. The strategic use of new technologies combined with team building, have the potential to elevate compliance officers to a higher level of deliverables.

Nevertheless, professionals should be aware that every innovation requires significant planning and training to manage the new complexities it introduces, not only during the implementation phase but also throughout the maturity process of each new technology. Being aware of these complexities before implementing more sophisticated tools is of paramount importance for achieving success in adopting new technologies.

Another potential pitfall to avoid is the use of indiscriminate technology tools. A precise assessment of which applications and tools will make a difference in productivity and improvements is highly recommended before prioritizing initiatives. Rational selection of the applications and tools is fundamental to avoid the trap of pursuing innovation at any cost.

Finally, based on what I´ve learned through my career in legal and compliance, technology is a crucial tool for enabling consistent and lasting achievements. However, precise and critical analysis to measure the effectiveness of selecting, implementing and monitoring new tools and frameworks will always rely on personal capabilities, technical knowledge and experience – “the personal touch” I´ve mentioned at the beginning of these insights. The faster you adapt to this reality, the more significant gains you will provide as compliance officers.