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bizpando is aimed at all companies of every industry, size and location.

In contrast to the competition, bizpando has a holistic approach. Every SME can already benefit greatly from the basic functions by visualizing their own supply chain, transmitting information on conformity and, if necessary, evaluating a need for action. In addition, smaller companies as registered suppliers support the large companies in fulfilling their duty to bring transparency into the compliance of their supply chain. Due to the cheap, size-dependent subscriptions, SMEs can also easily benefit from bizpando's extended functions.

bizpando is ready to go. Once you have completed registering your company - which only takes a few minutes - you are ready to start using the platform.

Yes, bizpando is an open platform. It is based on CrossLoom, an enterprise service bus that provides countless interfaces and other services. At bizpando, we encourage enterprises that wish to use our platform to offer their third-party services to contact us about this. The integration of external certificates on bizpando is already on the agenda and inquiries in this regard are of course welcome.

The Supply Chain Act, more precisely Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, was launched by the Federal Cabinet on March 3, 2021, passed by the Bundestag on June 11, 2021, and approved by the Bundesrat on June 25, 2021. It aims to improve the protection of human rights in global supply chains. This involves compliance with basic human rights standards such as the prohibition of child labor and forced labor. The legislator sees part of the responsibility for this among companies in Germany and has stipulated that they must ensure that human rights are observed in their supply chains. The law defines clear and implementable requirements for the due diligence of companies and thus creates legal certainty for companies and those affected. The law came into force in January 2023. More information

Yes, there are already many different supply chain laws in many countries based on the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. And the EU is also already working intensively on the topic and is in the process of launching a comprehensive supply chain law that will then apply to all EU countries. More information

The Whistleblower Protection Act is intended to ensure that persons who report anonymously on their knowledge of human rights violations and violations of the law are protected from repression. To this end, the law creates a safe space in which anyone has the opportunity, without threat of punishment, to report such findings to companies or institutions with the aim of their detection, investigation, prosecution and suppression. Enterprises with more than 50 employees are required by law to offer a corresponding reporting process. More information (German only)

In order to be informed about human rights violations, companies are obliged by the German Supply Chain Act to set up suitable reporting systems. If the implemented reporting systems can conscientiously guarantee the anonymity of the persons reporting, they are also suitable for the implementation of the Whistleblower Protection Act.

We at bizpando have developed the platform precisely for the purpose of supporting companies in meeting their obligations arising from the Supply Chain Act and the Whistleblower Protection Act. Five important requirements must be met for the Supply Chain Act: Making your own supply chain visible Identify and analyze risks in the supply chain Prevent potential misconduct through preventive measures or correct existing misconduct Implement reporting system Generate reports for respective authorities For each of these requirements, bizpando offers functions that make implementation easier: By inviting your direct suppliers to the platform, who will also do the same, your supply chain will be gradually visualized. By publishing the results of your self-assessments and those of all companies in your supply chain, you and your customers get a precise insight into the risk potential of the supply chain. The results are aggregated and can be analyzed on the risk dashboard. The transparent supply chain with its compliance results enables your company to take action to correct misconduct identified by the reporting system or other sources or to prevent future misconduct. With the reporting system integrated into bizpando, companies offer whistleblowers a protected environment in which they can anonymously report human rights violations of which they are aware. This fulfills both the requirements of the German Supply Chain Act and the Whistleblower Protection Act. bizpando summarizes all of the risks you have identified and the measures you have taken in automatically generated, formal reports that can be sent directly to the responsible authority.

All functions that ensure the compilation and the processing of supply chain data and data relating to compliance with the Supply Chain Act are free of charge. That means effectively: Linking your company with your suppliers and customers in the virtually mapped supply chain Use of the self-assessment questionnaires specifically developed to meet the requirements of the Supply Chain Act and checking the results for conformity Publishing the results of your self-assessment to upstream supply chain customers In-depth visibility into your supply chain hierarchy and compliance Generation of the dashboard for aggregating the compliance results as a basis for decision-making

Please have a look at the website section about the various features we offer: https://www.bizpando.com/the-platform

The effort is as low as possible. Of course, the data must get into the system. But bizpando offers you the greatest possible convenience for this. You can either enter the data of your customers and suppliers manually or simply import a list of all customer and supplier data into the system in a few, very well-described steps. When entering data manually, the system quickly recognizes whether the company you entered is a company already registered with bizpando. Depending on this, the company will either be sent an internal linking request or an external email as an invitation to register with bizpando in order to be linked as part of your supply chain. When importing, it is possible to insert data from an external system into an Excel template provided on the platform and to make the invitations in bulk using a guided process. bizpando also offers a REST-API as a direct interface to SAP.

That was also thought of. bizpando's sophisticated system enables you to select the "anonymous" option for each of your suppliers. In this case, when reviewing the supply chain, your customers will only see that there is an anonymous supplier at that supply chain level and the result of their self-assessment. But the customer does not learn any identifiable information about your supplier.

Due to the invitation principle, there are no limits to the number and depth of the supply chain. As soon as each registered company invites its first-level direct customers and suppliers and is linked, the chain structure is created automatically. The chain always ends downwards when a supplier has no suppliers itself and upwards when a company has no customers apart from the end consumer. You can "surf" through all the sub-levels of your suppliers in the portal using the different views. The more companies are registered on bizpando, the more transparent your supply chain will be.

Specially developed questionnaires based on the relevant legal sources are available on the platform for the various topics anchored in the Supply Chain Act (e.g. compliance with human rights). You fill out the multiple-choice questions for your company and even may justify or prove your answers to each question with the help of comments and file attachments (e.g. certificates). The underlying process allows intermediate statuses to be saved or printed out. Once everything is filled out correctly, the system evaluates the conformity by calculating the information according to a given code and the result can be published internally. It is then visible to your upstream supply chain (your customers, their customers, etc.).

The platform is constantly evolving and growing diligently. We at bizpando have big plans for the next few years. You can find the feature roadmap here.

Yes. All basic functions are free of charge and will remain so.

The platform is financed by an additional range of services. In addition to the basic obligations that arise from the Supply Chain Act for all companies, for which bizpando offers support with the free basic functions, there is an extended catalog of requirements for large companies, with which the extended functions of bizpando are helpful. These are chargeable. However, the costs for service subscriptions or transaction-based billing are in the lower price segment. This ensures that the administrative costs for effective participation in compliance with human rights and environmental standards do not pose a hurdle worldwide.

The bizpando platform is a "sharing economy" system that makes use of the "One Audit - Multiple Use" principle. This means that every registered company fills out its self-assessment once or has itself audited by an external auditor via the portal and the result is available to every linked customer. This is a great benefit for the proof of compliance with human rights in the entire supply chain required by the Supply Chain Act. Customers do not have to have the risk assessments re-created by each supplier and suppliers only have to complete (or have completed) the audit based on the requirements of the Supply Chain Act once instead of creating as many audits as they have customers. Therefore, the more companies participate in the platform, the greater the benefit for everyone, as the number of audits is drastically reduced for each participant. And remember: at bizpando, publishing the results of your self-assessment to your customers is a basic function and therefore free of charge. That is how you save on audit costs.