Supply chain due diligence requirements are growing quickly. What’s driving this shift, and why are so many companies struggling to keep up?
Supply chain due diligence is becoming much more data-driven. Regulators increasingly expect companies to provide verifiable information about where products come from, how they’re made, and whether human rights and environmental standards are being met. EUDR, the EU Forced Labour Regulation, PPWR, and the emerging Digital Product Passport framework are all moving toward the same expectation: trusted, structured supply chain data.
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This summer alone illustrates how quickly expectations are changing. New guidance on the EU Forced Labour Regulation arrived in June, the Digital Product Passport registry launched in July, and PPWR follows in August. Many companies are still trying to meet those expectations with disconnected systems and manual processes, an approach that simply doesn’t scale as regulations become more complex.
We’ve seen the difference firsthand. One brand completed a full due diligence assessment in 31 minutes, while another needed several hours and a team of six. The regulation didn’t change between them, just their data readiness.
You often describe supply chain due diligence as a “pre-competitive” issue rather than a competitive advantage. What do you mean by that, and why are major retailers beginning to collaborate instead of building their own proprietary systems?
Supply chain due diligence is not something companies should compete on. The goal is to create a common foundation for collecting and assessing supply chain data so everyone is working from the same baseline. The real competitive advantage comes from how companies act on those insights, not from maintaining proprietary questionnaires or duplicative compliance processes.
Historically, each retailer developed its own supplier questionnaires, due diligence workflows, and corrective action requirements. For brands selling to multiple retailers, that often meant providing the same information repeatedly in slightly different formats. Major retailers are increasingly recognizing that standardizing these processes doesn’t diminish their competitive position. Instead, it reduces administrative burden for suppliers, improves data consistency, and gives retailers higher-quality, more comparable information for managing supply chain risk. When data can be shared through a common framework, everyone spends less time on repetitive reporting and more time addressing the issues that actually matter.
Many smaller brands don’t have dedicated compliance teams. How has the current approach to supplier questionnaires, audits, and certifications disproportionately affected SMBs?
Smaller brands feel this most because they don’t have a dedicated compliance function to absorb the work. Large organizations may have specialists managing supplier questionnaires, audits, certifications, and corrective action plans, but many SMBs are trying to meet the same expectations with only a handful of employees.
That’s the gap solutions like One Retail Hub aim to close. Instead of managing a different process for every retailer relationship, a brand completes one shared assessment and reuses its existing documentation wherever it’s needed. It gives smaller brands access to the same standardized process larger organizations use, without requiring them to build an entire compliance function first.
Retailers have historically relied on their own questionnaires and compliance processes. Why is that model becoming increasingly unsustainable for global supply chains?
Every retailer asking suppliers to complete a different questionnaire may have been manageable when due diligence expectations were relatively limited. It becomes much harder when every new regulation requires more evidence, more supplier engagement, and more product-level documentation. Companies end up repeating the same work across multiple systems instead of building on information they’ve already collected.
The challenge is not just the time involved, but the growing cost of compliance. Even large brands are feeling that pressure, while smaller businesses often lack the resources to keep up. The industry needs to make compliance more practical so companies can spend less time managing administrative requirements and more time strengthening their supply chains.
How can the industry reduce the cost of compliance without lowering standards?
The industry can reduce the cost of compliance by reducing duplication, not by lowering standards. Companies shouldn’t have to collect the same evidence five different times simply because five customers ask for it in different ways.
Some manufacturers now spend around 150 hours every month on data collection and reporting, with dedicated staff focused solely on paperwork and traceability. By standardizing how due diligence information is collected and reused, companies can significantly reduce administrative effort while maintaining the same level of transparency and accountability. The goal is not to ask for less information, but to make it much easier to manage and apply across different requirements.
How can better supply chain data help companies do more than just meet compliance requirements?
Once the data exists in one place, verified and structured, compliance becomes the floor, not the ceiling. The same supplier information that proves EUDR or forced labour compliance can also show a brand where its Scope 3 emissions are coming from, which suppliers carry disproportionate risk, and where sourcing decisions can reduce both cost and impact.
We’re seeing brands use that information for real-time visibility rather than year-end reporting. Linking purchase orders to mapped suppliers means a brand knows, the moment an order is placed, exactly which facility will produce it and what that facility’s track record looks like. That’s a sourcing decision made with foresight instead of a compliance report written in hindsight.
The same data also strengthens product claims. If a brand says a garment contains 30 percent recycled material, it should have a verified data trail that supports that claim just as confidently as it would support a regulatory audit.
The long-term goal is for supply chain data to reach the same level of rigor as financial data. Better sourcing decisions, stronger risk management, and more credible product claims are what make it valuable long after the reporting requirement is met.
What needs to happen for compliance to become simpler and less expensive for companies across the supply chain?
The key is moving away from fragmented, retailer-by-retailer compliance and toward shared infrastructure.
Industry initiatives such as One Retail Hub demonstrate what that can look like by giving brands a standardized way to complete and share HREDD assessments across participating retailers while building on documentation they already have. AI can also help identify, organize, and reuse relevant information, making the process faster and more efficient without changing the underlying requirements.
As more retailers align around common frameworks, compliance becomes much easier to scale, allowing companies to spend more time improving supply chain transparency and strengthening due diligence rather than managing repetitive reporting.
Looking ahead, how do you see supply chain compliance changing over the next few years?
The biggest shift is away from compliance as an annual project. Right now, most teams still treat each regulation as its own sprint: gather evidence, submit it, then move on to the next requirement. Over the next few years, compliance will become much more continuous, with data collected as products move through the supply chain rather than assembled retroactively when a deadline arrives.
The second shift is from fragmented systems toward shared infrastructure. One Retail Hub is an early example of that, with multiple retailers agreeing that a common questionnaire is more effective than maintaining separate versions of the same process. I expect more of the industry to reach the same conclusion, not because collaboration is fashionable, but because the alternative simply doesn’t scale as regulations continue to multiply.
The third shift is that scrutiny will move earlier in the process. The EU Forced Labour Regulation’s latest guidance makes it clear that a company’s existing traceability can influence whether an investigation proceeds before it formally begins. That’s a preview of where the industry is heading more broadly. Companies with structured, retrievable data won’t just report faster. They’ll also be better positioned to demonstrate compliance from the outset.
Taken together, compliance stops being a reactive function and becomes business infrastructure that supports sourcing, risk management, product claims, and broader supply chain decision-making.
