Case study: How Wincor Nixdorf promotes compliance and lawful conduct

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2015/2016 Sustainability Report Wincor Nixdorf identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, human rights, training and education, environmentally friendly products and services, occupational health and safety. Among these, promoting compliance and lawful conduct stands out as a key material issue for Wincor Nixdorf.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The organization should identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process s of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Wincor Nixdorf engages with:   

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritize material topics Wincor Nixdorf engaged stakeholders through regular dialogues, workshops and conferences, evaluating the importance attributed to various topics by stakeholders and rating topics accordingly.

What actions were taken by Wincor Nixdorf to promote compliance and lawful conduct?

In its 2015/2016 Sustainability Report Wincor Nixdorf reports that it took the following actions for promoting compliance and lawful conduct:

• Promoting compliance through a compliance management system
• Wincor Nixdorf has established a compliance management system which includes prevention, detection/control and response to possible misconduct. Wincor Nixdorf’s Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) is responsible for implementing and developing the compliance management system, throughout the Group. He is supported by a Group-wide compliance officer system that comprises Regional Compliance Officers, Area Compliance Officers and Local Compliance Officers, who ensure that the compliance management system is applied properly in their areas of responsibility.

• Raising compliance awareness among employees
• Wincor Nixdorf builds compliance awareness among employees through:
  • regular compliance training in the form of seminars and online sessions
  • a compliance communication program that includes a quarterly compliance newsletter
  • an updated compliance portal on the company’s intranet
  • personal support by the Corporate Compliance Office

• Promoting lawful conduct through the Code of Conduct and various guidelines
• Wincor Nixdorf’s Code of Conduct is obligatory for all employees and is complemented by guidelines like the corporate hospitality guide, which provides guidance for employees on dealing with gifts, invitations and, in general, corporate hospitality. Additionally, to raise awareness of this topic among employees and offer help and advice on how to deal with such issues, Wincor Nixdorf has issued a new guideline on the prevention of and proper response to conflicts of interest.

Which GRI Standards have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 102-16 Values, principles, standards, and norms of behavior

2) Disclosure 205-2 Communication and training about anti-corruption policies and procedures

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Wincor Nixdorf, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) http://www.fbrh.co.uk/en/global-reporting-initiative-gri-g4-guidelines-download-page

3) https://g4.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx

4) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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