Henrik Pontoppidan, Director of S2U Design, talks about compliance and how everyone agrees it’s a pain, but no one agrees who owns it.
The Meeting Everyone Recognises
A typical scenario here in Vietnam, when debating projects, production and progress in factories – particularly wood factories – is this:
We discuss materials, finish, construction, cost, tweaks, packaging. All product related.
Then we move to the elephant in the room – where the wood is from, and how it’s documented to comply with regulation in the destination country. EUDR, UKTR, FLEGT, Lacey.
The factory will show what they have. FSC certificates, supplier declarations, documents used for another customer. It sounds reasonable.
When you start scrutinising it, it usually isn’t.
What they have is not a system, but a collection of documents built over time, based on what different customers have asked for.
Built on Requests, Not Understanding
One customer asks for a set of compliance documents. Another asks for different ones. A third brings requirements shaped by a previous issue.
So, the factory reacts. They provide what appears to satisfy each request. Same factory. Same product. Same market. Different versions of “compliant”.
From their side, that is logical. They follow instructions.
Compliance Responsibility Is Not a Factory Job
Compliance is the legal responsibility of the company placing the product on the market. That part is clear.
Expecting the factory to drive it—or fully understand what is required in each destination market—is where things go wrong.
Importers who don’t take control of this themselves are taking on risk whether they realise it or not.
Patchwork Feels Like Control
Most buyers don’t fully control it either. They know the parts they’ve had to deal with.
A shipment gets held. Customs asks questions. A document is not accepted. That issue gets fixed.
Next time, that point is covered. But that is not a system. It’s patchwork.
Smooth Shipments Hide the Problem
It works and shipments arrive and so compliance requirements are being considered ‘in order’ – apart from the nagging feeling that perhaps it isn’t, despite smooth container flows.
Until something gets held.
Then what is assumed and what can actually be documented tends to separate quickly.
When It Spreads Internally
Inside the organisation, compliance management is often reactive, and dealt with ad hoc.
Buyers collect supplier information. Logistics checks paperwork. Product people get pulled into something they were never meant to handle.
Everyone contributes. At the same time, no one really owns it.
Good people stepping into areas outside their role, trying to connect something that was never structured properly to begin with.
Time goes into it. Output doesn’t follow.
The Compliance Person Problem
Bringing in a compliance person is a good idea. But if that role is not properly anchored, it ends up isolated.
One person looking at the full requirement, while everyone else is working from fragments.
That person asks the right questions early – necessary, but it can feel like interruption of the flow.
Ownership Changes the Dynamic
The setups that work are not more complicated. They are clearer.
One person – or one function – owns compliance properly. Not just collecting documents, but understanding what is required and why.
Without that, it becomes guesswork.
The factory gets one clear set of compliance requirements from the beginning.
The organisation is not pulled into compliance across multiple roles.
Buyers focus on cost and negotiation. Product teams on design, specifications and packaging.
Vietnam Reality: Factories Follow Instructions
From here, the gap is obvious. Factories are reactive. They respond to instructions. Legal requirements in your market are secondary.
If instructions are unclear, the response is unclear. If they are late, compliance is possibly already breached.
Factories will follow what you ask for. They won’t define it for you.
Ground Execution Decides the Outcome
Even when the importer understands compliance properly, it still has to be executed here.
The people working directly with the factory need to understand what they are asking for, and be able to explain it in a way the factory can actually work with.
Otherwise, it becomes translation without understanding.
Material sourcing, supplier alignment, documentation are all ticking bombs without control.
The Easy Route (And Why It Fails)
It is possible to run this like many do.
Respond to what is asked. Provide documents that appear to satisfy the requirement. Move the order forward.
That works – until it doesn’t. That’s when customs get involved. Because the issue is not whether documents exist.
It is whether the structure behind them holds when it is tested.
Where It Starts to Work
The projects that move cleanly deal with this before production starts.
Before materials are fixed. Before assumptions settle in.
Where compliance is owned, understood, and driven properly – from the importer, through the people working directly with the factory, and into the factory itself.
What Actually Makes the Difference
Most importers don’t need more documents. They need control.
And that usually comes down to having someone who understands both sides – what is required, and how to make that work in practice in Vietnam.
Because that gap is where most problems sit.
www.s2udesign.com
henrik@s2udesign.com
