The Critical Role of Cross-Functional Collaboration in Transparency Reporting Success

If you’ve worked in transparency reporting for even one reporting cycle, you’ll know one truth: no single person or department can pull it off alone. Regulations around disclosure of transfers of value (TOVs) to healthcare professionals (HCPs) and healthcare organizations (HCOs) are demanding, many regimes set fixed annual or semi-annual submission windows and public publication dates, teams need year-round readiness rather than a once-a-year scramble, and expectations continue to rise globally as authorities and code bodies refine guidance and increase scrutiny.

But the real challenge is not just about compliance teams understanding the law, it’s about how well an organization works together. Transparency reporting is only as strong as the collaboration behind it.

The end goal is building public trust by shining a light on industry interactions with healthcare. But the journey to accurate, timely, and defensible reporting is anything but simple. Requirements vary by jurisdiction (definitions, thresholds, review windows, publication rules), so collaboration must be paired with clear market-specific SOPs. The real challenge is not just about understanding the rules, it’s about getting an entire company to work together, across silos, to meet them.

This is where cross-functional collaboration becomes absolutely critical.

Why Collaboration Matters

At first glance, transparency reporting looks like a compliance problem. Regulators say, “disclose payments,” and compliance teams set up processes to collect the data. But dig deeper, and you realize compliance doesn’t actually own most of the information.

• Finance has the expense reports and payment ledgers.
• Medical affairs manages investigator-initiated studies, speaker programs, and educational grants.
• Legal interprets the laws and decides what counts as reportable.
• IT and data teams hold the systems where information lives, sometimes spread across dozens of platforms.
• Commercial teams run events, sponsorships, and training programs.

If one part of the process falters, for example, if finance miscodes a payment or medical affairs tracks information in a different format, the overall picture becomes fragmented. That’s exactly how reporting gaps and inconsistencies emerge, and regulators tend to spot them quickly. Only by working together can an organization see the full picture.

In other words, transparency reporting is less about a single team doing its job, and more about how well multiple teams connect and align.

What Happens When Teams Don’t Collaborate

The problems that arise from weak collaboration are not hypothetical, they’re the exact painful points most companies have already lived through. Data locked away in silos, each department working on its own version of the truth. Different interpretations of what counts as a donation, sponsorship, or educational grant. Spreadsheets arriving weeks late, riddled with errors because no one agreed on a common format.

And then there’s the audit question. Authorities, code bodies, and auditors may request supporting documentation (source systems, validations, approvals) to understand how figures were compiled. They ask: Where did this number come from? How was it validated? Who approved it? If the organization can’t answer confidently, it doesn’t matter how good the report looks on the surface, the foundation crumbles under scrutiny.

The reality is that the weakest link often defines the entire outcome. You can have the best compliance team in the world, but if they don’t get cooperation from other functions, they’re fighting a losing battle.

Building Strong Collaboration: Practical Steps

So, what does good cross-functional collaboration actually look like in practice? From my experience, a few strategies stand out:

1. Assign Clear Roles and Ownership
   Every department needs to know exactly what they’re responsible for. Finance owns payments, medical affairs owns study-related TOVs, and compliance owns interpretation and submission. When ownership is vague, things fall through the cracks.
2. Create a Regular Governance Rhythm
   Don’t wait until the reporting deadline is around the corner. Set up quarterly or even monthly check-ins between functions. Use them to flag issues early, review upcoming events, and align on related definitions.
3. Standardize Processes and Templates
   If every team tracks data in a different format, consolidation is painful. Standardized templates, naming conventions, and SOPs go a long way in reducing friction.
4. Leverage Technology to Bridge Gaps
   A centralized system (whether in-house or vendor-built) is a game-changer. It ensures all functions feed into the same place, making validation and reconciliation smoother. Without this, you’ll always be chasing multiple sources of truth.

Build Awareness and Shared Purpose
Perhaps the most underrated piece is culture. When people across the business understand why transparency reporting matters, not just as a regulatory burden, but as a trust-building tool, they’re more motivated to play their part. Training and communication really help here.

An Everyday Example

While supporting a company through a remediation project, our global solutions delivery team began by running a full gap analysis. What quickly became clear was how differently each department managed its data. Some were using SAP, others relied on Concur, and each system had its own quirks. One department, which handled Concur, was proactive and made the necessary changes right away. Others, however, were more hesitant to adjust their processes. That reluctance mattered because if their systems weren’t updated, the data feeding into the final transparency report would remain incomplete.

The turning point came when we brought all the departments together in the same room. Once they had the chance to explain their challenges, compare notes, and see how their choices impacted everyone else, the picture started to shift. People began to coordinate and align their approaches, which made the overall remediation far more effective. It reinforced a simple point: when departments collaborate early and openly, the reporting process becomes much smoother and the final output more reliable.

Why It’s Hard but Worth It

Of course, collaboration doesn’t just “happen.” Functions have different priorities, cultures, and pressures. Finance teams care about closing books, compliance cares about disclosure deadlines, and commercial teams care about business targets. It’s easy to see why transparency reporting slips down the priority list. Add in global differences, languages, local rules, and cultural attitudes toward compliance, and the challenge grows.

But the payoff is undeniable. When collaboration is strong, the reporting process is more efficient, less stressful, and far less risky. Mistakes are caught early, definitions are consistent, and deadlines stop feeling like cliffs. Most importantly, the company gains credibility—not just with regulators but also with the healthcare community and the public.

Looking Forward

The demand for transparency reporting isn’t going away. In fact, reportable categories and data expectations continue to evolve (e.g., virtual engagements, patient-organization support, cross-border TOVs), and some markets are moving to more granular, faster cycles.

That means collaboration will matter more, not less. Organizations that build strong cross-functional frameworks now will be in a much better position to handle what’s coming. Those who don’t will find themselves stuck in reactive mode, always scrambling to catch up.

It’s worth thinking about collaboration not as a compliance exercise, but as a business advantage. A company that can reliably and confidently meet transparency obligations builds trust with regulators, with healthcare providers, and with society at large. And trust, in today’s environment, is as valuable as any product on the shelf.