Modern Slavery Statement 2021

What Pentana Solutions is doing about Modern Slavery

Modern slavery remains a widespread issue across the globe. There is no universal definition of modern slavery, but it encompasses human trafficking, forced or bonded labour, as well as forced marriage, child labour, servitude and deceptive recruitment for labour/services. Usually, it involves coercion, threats or deception to exploit victims and deprive them of their freedom. As a global organisation, Pentana Solutions is strongly opposed to slavery and human trafficking. We will not knowingly support or conduct business with any organisation involved in such activities.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, we are working on implementing the obligations stemming from the Commonwealth Modern Slavery Act 2018 which commenced on 1 January 2020. Under the Act, we are required to produce a Modern Slavery Statement which reports on the risks of modern slavery in our overall business and investment operations and supply chains and will outline our approach to addressing those risks. We will be working closely with our stakeholders to assist them with their reporting requirements ahead of this date. We will also be providing updates to this statement periodically.

We aim for high standards of governance throughout our organisation and corporate responsibility is of primary importance to us. We recognise the responsibility we have towards our stakeholders, including our employees and society as a whole.

Organisational Structure

Founded in 1974, Pentana Solutions, is a leading Information Technology company that specialises in the development of software solutions and services for the automotive and associated industries.

Pentana Solutions employs over 570 staff throughout 17 locations globally, with its corporate headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. Pentana Solutions’ products and services are used by more than 50,000 users in 100+ countries.

Pentana Solutions provides a number of Dealer Management Systems (DMS) to retail dealerships globally and works closely with vehicle manufacturers across the world to provide dealers with integrations that support competitive advantage, efficiencies and contribute to overall profitability. Pentana Solutions has developed over 1,400 franchise interfaces including third party products that are fully integrated to the DMS. This means that we are able to better support the need for efficient communications between manufacturers with dealers, while ensuring that data is always compliant with franchise requirements through these trusted and reliable interfaces.

Our People

Pentana Solutions empowers its people to be the best they can be through its guiding values; Enjoyment, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Communication, and Honesty (En.R.I.T.C.H.), created by its employees in 1994 and further enhanced in 2021, with the addition of the value of Enjoyment.

Our direct workforce is predominantly made up of professionally qualified and skilled employees and we consider the risk of modern slavery occurring amongst our employees to be low. We are an employer that is committed to meeting the living wage for all our Australian-based employees and Globally where applicable, we expect our suppliers to adopt the same principle. All new employees must comply with our regional employee handbooks and or policies, which sets out that we expect the highest standards of ethics and integrity and makes clear that we oppose all forms of unfair discrimination or victimisation.

Our Ethical Standards

We promote high ethical standards and have an internal Whistleblowing Policy whereby employees can raise any suspected concerns regarding unethical behaviour or decisions that could indicate potential wrongdoing. Due diligence is undertaken before entering a new client or supplier relationship and this is enhanced in high-risk countries.

Training

We recognise that training is crucial to raising awareness of issues around slavery including how to spot signs of trafficking and where to report concerns.

We provide specific training to our global procurement team and other employees involved in the management of our suppliers and we have training modules on modern slavery and human trafficking available to all employees through our online training platform, which our People & Culture Pillar promotes via our Global Learning and Development Business Partner and Internal Communications team.

Our Supply Chain

Pentana Solutions relies on the use of third parties to support high quality, effective and efficient delivery of our services to clients and we expect all of our suppliers to operate in a responsible, ethical, open and transparent way and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. With supply chains predominantly comprising business and professional services organisations, we believe that there is limited to No risk of slavery or human trafficking taking place. The vast majority of our major suppliers are headquartered in low risk countries and in the coming year, we plan to collect a more granular geographic breakdown of our supply chains. We undertake due diligence on all material suppliers and monitor, review and manage these relationships.

We take a risk-based approach to supplier management and classification with criteria which includes business impact of failure, service complexity, regulatory requirements, brand/reputational impact and contract length used to determine appropriate on-going contract and performance management activities. We expect all of our suppliers to operate in a responsible, ethical, open and transparent way and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations and we identify any potential risks through our internal Risk Register Process.

Due Diligence

We undertake due diligence on all our material suppliers and establish on-going performance measurement to monitor, review and manage these relationships. Our due diligence process now includes a specific human rights risk assessment as a measurement criteria to be used during the selection process for new suppliers.

Material suppliers are reviewed annually in line with our policies and this includes assessment against service levels, operational risk, compliance with regulation, business continuity and contractual obligations.

The output from the annual due diligence reports and other relevant market information will be collated into a service provider risk report for review by our Board members.

Active Stewardship

Our People & Culture team have been involved in integrating environmental, social and governance analysis and initiatives through various projects, including Planet Matters and My Pentana, so as to better promote the importance of this way of thinking, and to ensure that it becomes a core part of how we generate long-term sustainable value for our stakeholders. Modern slavery and companies’ management of their workers and suppliers more broadly are becoming increasingly important to our analysis of the companies in which we invest and human rights in addition to other topics such as climate change and bribery and corruption are considered.

As attention on this topic grows and transparency improves, we will continue to strengthen our assessment of business practices and engage with companies where we believe tougher action is needed.

We will be working with external industry working groups, along with our Auditors PWC, to better understand our obligations and how best to meet these obligations in a way that meets both the regulatory and industry expectations.

In line with the reporting obligations of the Commonwealth Modern Slavery Act 2018, Pentana Solutions is very conscious that our suppliers and stakeholders must also provide an annual statement disclosing the risks of modern slavery within their operations and supply chains and outline the actions taken to address these risks. As such, we are working closely with our relevant stakeholder base to assist with their reporting obligations and envisage punctuating the above deliverable with several interim updates as we work through the assessment of modern slavery risks across our business well ahead of this date. In line with this, we will continue to canvas our service providers and work towards strengthening our own assessment of modern slavery risks across our supply chain and investment methodologies.

If you would like further information, please contact our Company Secretary on email secretary@pentanasolutions.com or phone (03) 9535 2222.

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