Amongst the many day to day challenges, one of the main challenge faced by a micro or a small scale producer of health and wellness products is the question : “Since I produce in small quantities and sell my products locally, do I need to comply with various regulations required to legally start, run and establish a health and wellness product/s business ? “

This, in itself is a complicated question since we need to consider views, requirements, needs, responsibilities etc., of various factors/players in this environment. Some of these major factors/players/stakeholders in the business environment include customer/s, entrepreneur, government, people which have invested in your business, your employees, distributors, competitors, various central and state departments etc.,

Let’s try to understand different perspectives :
– From the perspective of a customer or end user, he or she would expect a product or service which they can be confident of, trust to be safe, provide the benefit for which it was purchased for and also have a higher value than the money spent.
– From a business perspective, as an entrepreneur, the focus will always be on sustaining and growing the business by producing or selling trustworthy products and or services (“Brand”) to the end customer, for a profit.
– From the perspective of the distribution or sales channel, they would prefer to distribute, market and ultimately sell a product which they are confident about from the safety, utility and sales volume perspective.
– From the government’s perspective, since one of its primary constitutional responsibility is the welfare of its people and country it has created various monitoring, controlling and taxation collection departments or agencies to ensure interests of everyone in the country and the country itself are taken care of. Although this is a primary constitutional objective, in reality, this is yet to be achieved in all spheres of activity.
– So, from the perspective of central and state government departments, their one and only mandate is to ensure all business and individuals comply or follow the procedures and or rules(regulations) set forth by the respective governments.
– The pride an employee and a business owner feels when he or she hears from an end user about a great product which his organisation produces, can only be experienced and not explained !

Although compliance to existing regulations is essential to start, conduct and maintain a business, don’t you think adhering or compliance to regulatory requirements will actually benefit your business ? Just think from your customer’s perspective. Does your brand command that authority from a “quality product” perspective ? Would you buy such a product if you are a customer ?

So, to create a trustworthy product or service (Brand), especially in the health and wellness sector, which all stakeholders are not only comfortable buying but also recommend to others, regulatory, legal compliance is one of the essential pillars’ on which your business should stand on.

Although legal, regulatory compliance is mandatory, the challenges in regulatory compliance are two to threefold. First, lack of awareness, second multitude of approvals required to start a business which span across multiple functional governmental departments, non-availability of specific procedural information, manual process/procedures to enable compliance and most important, inertia or aversion to interact with the government and or its various departments.

In summary, the cost of regulatory compliance is :
Being in business for a longer duration PLUS building a brand which your customers trust EQUALS to repeated purchases helping your business survive and grow !

Do you still think attaining regulatory compliance is an option ?

Can we actually attribute a cost to regulatory compliance ?

Come, let’s start building high quality products through world class organisations !

People who change AFTER change will Survive
People who change WITH change will survive
People who CAUSE the change will LEAD…

– Anonymous