On Monday 21 February, Grupo Éxito was publically acknowledged for having surpassed the Integrity Laboratory 100 threshold. Our Director, Camilo Enciso, traveled to the city of Medellín to deliver a special plaque to their offices which recognizes the significant efforts made by the company, with its Anti-Bribery Management System having passed an evaluation by the Expert Panel. Accompanied by his legal team, Carlos Mario Giraldo – President of Almacenes Éxito, was acknowledged for having received the Institute’s approval.
“Éxito has made a tremendous effort to focus on business integrity over the past few years, something which was very positively corroborated by our findings and recommendations during the course of this project. Seeing organizations demonstrate this kind of commitment to business integrity at such a high level allows us to dream that Colombia can be better,” Camilo Enciso said in a direct statement to the company.
The Integrity 100 Lab is a business ethics accelerator that evaluates companies’ anti-bribery compliance systems, diagnoses their most glaring flaws, accelerates change and closes the gaps between their strengths, whilst identifying any further opportunities for improvement; the lab also publicly recognizes those companies that manage to surpass the Integrity Threshold: a minimum standard that permits them access to use the Integrity 100 seal. The project is focused on evaluating good business practices and promoting meaningful improvements in the fields of compliance, integrity, transparency, anti-bribery and anti-corruption within Colombian companies.
The evaluation is carried out through the lab’s own bespoke methodology based on three tools: i) a self-assessment to highlight opportunities for improvement within the field of compliance that the company being evaluated company might have or be able to introduce, bearing in mind the different indicators used by the methodology ii) a quantitative evaluation divided into the eight components drawn from the ISO 37001:2016 standard, Anti-Bribery Management System, which has been previously mentioned, whose rating is equivalent to 80% of the total rating and iii) a survey to ascertain perceptions of the culture of integrity within the field of compliance and the anti-bribery management system of the particular company being evaluated; the survey is completed by employees, whose rating is equivalent to 20% of the total rating.
In the case of Almacenes Éxito, the major effort made by the company to incorporate a culture of integrity throughout the organization should be highlighted, congratulated and recognized. Their qualification was excellent in each one of the components, as well as in the perception survey which gauged the opinions of different collaborators. It was an honor for the Anti-Corruption Institute to be able to bestow this recognition – and more than recognition, this title – on the company. The collective group of actions taken by Almacenes Éxito set them aside and set an important example to the different companies that work in Colombia and fight for integrity every single day.
To find out more about the Laboratory, please click here.
Official statement:
2021_1118_Lab-100_comunicado-almacenes-exito_DB_APA_AMC
