There are certain parallels between a home invasion or burglary and company fraud. Home security consultants advise that the solution is to make your home less of an attractive option than the house down the road.
What does this mean?
You proactively manage the perpetrator’s risk: reward assessment of selecting your home. This means that the perpetrator decides that the risk of entering your home is greater than the potential reward.
This principle can also apply to avoiding and preventing fraud in a company, using three strategic pillars.
1. Staff awareness and education.
This should not be a one-off tick box exercise but must be continuous. Staff must be aware of your stand against fraud, proactive measures, frequency and robustness of audits, how to report suspicion of fraud and be protected from victimisation, among others. A company needs to instil a climate of compliance in its culture.
2. Technology.
Increasingly, technology is presenting effective solutions which can reduce your risk of fraud. Ai, data analytics, and biometrics applications – often with real-time reporting – can play an effective role in fraud avoidance or picking it up early.
3. Robust audits.
Initially, Mubesko Africa can conduct an audit to pinpoint and prioritise weaknesses in processes. Ideally, there should be regular audits which also serve to discourage would-be perpetrators.
Treat your company’s vulnerability in the same way that you’d treat your home’s security. Today, most residents don’t wait until they’re burgled but install security systems and processes so that when a burglar or home invader conducts a risk: reward assessment, they move off to another place where the risk of being detected is considerably less.
Mubesko Africa is a well-established consultancy offering financial management and management support, asset accounting and modelling, and forensic investigation services.