Tool for LkSG risk analysis

The German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act obliges companies to identify, assess, and actively manage human rights and environmental risks in their supply chains – a task that quickly becomes confusing, labor-intensive, and expensive if done manually. The developed solution addresses this issue directly: based on existing purchasing data – such as suppliers, product group, country, and purchasing value – it models the relevant risks for each legal topic in terms of severity, likelihood, and reversibility, and then prioritizes the suppliers with the greatest need for action. The core benefit lies in a pragmatic, risk-based approach: instead of scrutinizing all suppliers with the same level of effort, targeted, suitable preventive measures are recommended, and their implementation is tracked in clear dashboards. For the companies concerned – primarily larger trading and industrial companies – this means cost-efficient risk management without complex onboarding of suppliers. At the same time, the results required for regulatory reporting are prepared in a structured manner, ensuring that legal requirements can be met in a transparent and traceable way.

Technologically, the application was implemented as a cloud-based platform on the Google Cloud Platform. For the early development stage, a deliberately serverless approach was chosen in order to focus on the business logic; the target architecture was designed as a modular, message-driven system that allows the flexible replacement of individual calculation steps. Data ingestion and provision are handled via standardized interfaces such as REST and CSV, and results are visualized using the dashboard tool like Superset. Methodologically, work was consistently user-centered, iterative, and MVP-oriented: starting from a proof of concept, the solution was gradually developed into a robust product through user story mapping and regular feedback loops. This made it possible to tightly integrate business requirements and technical implementation and to validate them early against real-world needs.

The solution was developed in collaboration with Systain, a consultancy focused on sustainability and human rights that contributed the subject-matter expertise on risk factors. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary and international development team was established and an agile way of working was anchored in the team. Conceived as an independent product development, the responsibility included not only the technical implementation, but also the development of the business case, coordination of marketing activities, and the go-to-market strategy – from initial concept through to market launch.

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