Kenmark Eyewear is a designer, manufacturer, and distributor of quality eyewear. The employee-owned company fulfills and ships orders from its United States headquarters to optical practices, luxury department stores, boutique shops, and multi-national chains in over 70 countries worldwide.
The raw materials used in Kenmark Eyewear’s products are sourced from the best suppliers in the industry as part of the company’s commitment to high ethical standards, quality, and consistency.
In 2014, one of Kenmark Eyewear’s major customers established a conflict minerals program and requested the company’s participation in supplying conflict minerals compliance reports. At the time, Kenmark Eyewear was unfamiliar with the conflict minerals compliance landscape, and its customer recommended partnering with Source Intelligence.
Upon this recommendation, Kenmark Eyewear’s Vice President of Supply Chain connected with Source Intelligence to learn more about the regulatory requirements associated with conflict minerals and how Source Intelligence’s software facilitates compliance.
Once Kenmark Eyewear decided to partner with Source Intelligence, the two companies worked closely together to determine attainable goals for Kenmark Eyewear’s conflict minerals program and what tools, knowledge, and supplier communication strategies were required to achieve success.
With Source Intelligence’s conflict minerals software, Kenmark Eyewear streamlined its compliance efforts by automating supplier engagement, data validation, and report generation. This enabled the company to easily fulfill customer requests for conflict minerals compliance documentation.
The benefits of the partnership between Kenmark Eyewear and Source Intelligence extended beyond the software’s capabilities. Kenmark Eyewear’s dedicated program manager educated the company’s compliance team on best practices for supplier engagement. From helping suppliers understand their deliverables to overcoming language barriers, this support empowered Kenmark Eyewear to boost response rates and reduce supplier fatigue—which ultimately addressed the company’s primary pain point: supplier responsiveness.
After partnering with Source Intelligence, Kenmark Eyewear’s conflict minerals compliance program expanded rapidly over the next few years as more customers began to require conflict minerals compliance reports. Despite this increased demand, the company continued to follow supplier engagement best practices and build positive supplier relationships.
Over the next four years, Kenmark Eyewear achieved substantial growth in its supplier response rates. The company achieved a 25% response rate in 2014, grew that rate to 90% in 2015, and reached its goal of 100% in 2017. Since 2017, Kenmark Eyewear has continued to maintain a 100% supplier response rate each year. Every August, Kenmark Eyewear’s tier-one suppliers know that it’s conflict minerals season, and they know exactly what is expected of them.
“Source Intelligence is our go-to partner for all things compliance. The understanding that the Source Intelligence team has of the compliance landscape is great. The educational component is there. So many passionate people in the organization helped our team understand exactly what their solutions offer, why it’s important, and what it means to be a part of it. It’s not just a company selling a service to check a box and be done with it—it's so much more than that. Through the education, support, and cheerleading that the Source Intelligence team provided, we understood that achieving a 100% supplier response rate is crucial to compliance success, and we quickly met that goal.”
- Susan Parker, Vice President of Supply Chain
Managing conflict minerals compliance is challenging—especially when supplier response rates are low and data is incomplete or inaccurate. Chasing down the information you need can drain internal resources and expose your business to legal, financial, and reputational risk.
Source Intelligence’s Minerals Reporting and Due Diligence solution minimizes that burden by streamlining supplier outreach and improving data quality. Our expert engagement team uses proven strategies to reduce supplier fatigue while collecting CMRTs, EMRTs, and AMRTs. We validate every response, follow up on discrepancies, and verify listed smelters and refiners to ensure reporting accuracy. All collected data is compiled into a single, audit-ready report for efficient analysis and compliance tracking.
Simplify minerals reporting with Source Intelligence. Schedule a demo to see how we can help.