9SEPTEMBER 2021controls to ensure that transactions are correctly identified and analyzed, and roles and responsibilities in the new setting. Educating stakeholders of the impact of non-compliance is extremely helpful in gathering cooperation, as it answers the "why" behind the change. In this case, corporates that do not comply would be subject to penalty. · Keep it simple. Setting up a technology that is cumbersome to maintain or has complex requirements is rarely the best approach. In such cases, it's likely that the users will not be motivated to keep at it with the same zest in future years as they did initially. This would result in unused technology and a lot of wasted money and effort. It's therefore important to keep it as simple as possible for users, ensuring that it's much easier to actually use the technology than fall back into old processes as the years go by.In case of MDR and DPT compliance, transactions in a large corporate would involve several departments within the organization, often with different skill sets in technology and sometimes with different system configurations and/or domains. Having a complex technology that is difficult to learn, or results in access or compatibility issues will not make life easier; making it extremely important to keep it simple. For example, having a new process (think committee meetings) to gather data using existing technology (think excel) but use technology to quickly analyze the data. Here a smaller group of people would need to learn and incorporate new technology whereas the larger group would simply have a new process.· Strike a balance between scalable and customizable. Scalable technology can expand to accommodate increasing workload, and it can grow with time (or be upgraded) rather than need to be replaced. Such technology can grow more efficient as the usage expands and therefore it is more cost effective in the long term. Customization can be helpful but can also result in more issues that need troubleshooting. Over customization can make a solution more niche and less transferable to other processes in the organization, impacting scalability. It's important to strike the right balance as you invest in new technologies.Both MDR and DPT requires an analysis of transactions for companies. A similar analysis of transactions would also be required for BEAT (in the US), the new tax reform in Mexico, and DPT in Australia. Transactional data also supports transfer pricing analyses around the world. Therefore, essentially, a process to gather and analyze transactions introduced for MDR and DPT compliance can also be used to support the tax compliances in the US, Mexico and Australia; as well as transfer pricing documentation processes worldwide. An excel data gathering template with the right controls may be the most effective in this case, as it can easily be expanded to more countries. Having an effective process will often be the first step to more sophisticated technology solution in the future.In summary, introducing a complex solution, or doing so without effective change management may result in an ineffective rollout of the new solution: where it gains very limited adoption, or it is forced into outdated workflows not realizing the expected benefits. Therefore, it is important to keep all these factors in mind when considering new solutions and planning for implementation. Soorashree SadekarHaving an effective process will often be the first step to more sophisticated technology solution in the future
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