INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security
How does AI provide an opportunity to reduce corporate fraud ?
Carolina Borzatto , Marketing Director for Latin America at SAP Concur , explains how intelligent expense management can reduce fraud and increase business productivity .
After salaries , corporate expenses represent the second operating cost for companies and are a crucial source of internal fraud . According to data from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners ( ACFE ), they produce a loss equivalent to 5 % of total revenues .
Corporate fraud is a problem that crosses the entire company . Most frauds are committed by employees or managers ( 41 % and 35 % of incidents , respectively ), and critical losses account for 20 % of actions taken by top executives . Frauds are also found in numerous areas , mainly operations ( 15 %), accounting ( 14 %) and sales ( 12 %). in documents issued in different languages and countries , and cross-reference this information with corporate policies , authorizations , exceptions that could have benefited or even market averages .
For example , if each employee traveling to a destination spends a certain amount of money per day , any employee at that same destination who needs twice as much money will automatically trigger an alarm . But beyond this , AI can find much more subtle signs .
Any anomaly , no matter how small , becomes a ‘ clue ’ that it will activate the technology until it finds an acceptable resolution .
A fact is that fraud detection happens in near real-time . The ACFE study mentioned above pointed out that a typical case takes no less than 14 months to be detected and , during that time , produces very significant incremental losses . When a fraud attempt is successful , in many cases , it becomes the incentive for trying it a second time .
The market is becoming aware of the opportunity presented by control over spending and early identification of potential fraud . Data from SAP confirms that approximately 41 % of companies worldwide have increased their global budget for anti-fraud programs and 48 % have invested in technology as a timely way to tackle the problem .
Companies were already working on this , but now technology can contribute to solving each case earlier and generate a better knowledge of their own and the market indicators more efficiently – not only to avoid losses but also to ensure savings . p
The variety of alternatives found by those committing fraud is large and growing daily . Some examples are duplicate meal charges , expenses without receipts , cash payments without vouchers , purchases for family or friends passed on as business costs and counterfeit tickets .
But today , companies have fundamental tools to contain the escalation and even anticipate future fraudulent strategies such as Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) and Machine Learning .
These technologies now find patterns in the data and detect any anomalies using algorithms based on mathematical models .
With recent advances , AI can interpret dates , vendor names , quantities and any other data
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