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 continues 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
Complying with conflict minerals reporting requirements poses several challenges, such as low supplier response rates and incomplete or inaccurate supplier data. Chasing down suppliers for the information you need consumes valuable resources and exposes your business to risk legally, financially, and reputationally. The Source Intelligence conflict minerals program helps companies avoid those challenges and reduce risk in their supply chain.
Our supplier engagement team follows up with suppliers to collect CMRTs using best practices to limit supplier fatigue. All submitted data is validated, and any inconsistent or incomplete data is followed up on. We also provide data verification of listed smelters and refiners. All this information is then compiled into one concise, comprehensive report for data analysis.
Our conflict minerals program extends to additional minerals; Extended Minerals Reporting Templates (EMRTs) and Additional Minerals Reporting Templates (AMRTs) can also be collected and analyzed for reporting purposes.
Simplify conflict minerals reporting with Source Intelligence. Schedule a demo today to learn how we can help.