Grow Your Anti Fraud Culture

Moving along the anti-fraud maturity (AFM) curve will improve your organization’s culture and increase profitability. This shift in culture helps you fight internal and external fraud, protect against cybercrime, and remain compliant with regulatory demands.

Below are the five phases of the AFM curve:

1. Most organizations are in the initial phase, which means there are very few people who understand the true risks of fraud to the organization and there are almost zero resources available to fight fraud. Fraud is a significant risk to any organization. If fraud is discovered, the leaders, if alerted, do not have the information or knowledge necessary to make good decisions when responding to the discovery.
2. The second phase, manage, means your organization is taking some steps in the fight against fraud. It has some anti-fraud processes in place focused on high-risk transactions or relationships. Most importantly, the organization has a response plan, made available to key employees, to follow when fraud is discovered. However, the organizations in this phase are still in reactive posture.
3. As an organization moves into the define phase, it’s beginning to reduce its fraud risk. Leaders have implemented entity-wide programs to address fraud including a code of conduct and anti-fraud training for all employees. An organization’s fight against fraud is shifting from reactive to proactive.
4. The move from the third to fourth phase, measure, is a significant shift in focus. In this phase, the organization begins to measure the results of its fraud fighting efforts and to measure the effectiveness of its controls. At this phase, the organization starts to quantify the impact and value of the investment in the fight against fraud.
5. In the final phase, improve, organizations use the findings and results identified in the measure phase to improve or enhance the organization’s fraud-fighting culture. Everyone in the organization is engaged, and their ability to fluidly change and shift resources can enable the organization to implement any new initiatives more quickly and effectively.

Moving through this AFM curve is a choice. Are you willing to lead your organization forward? Contact us to team with HORNE and start seeing results.

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