{"id":4161,"date":"2017-04-18T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T20:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=wherenext&p=4161"},"modified":"2023-12-04T12:16:25","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T20:16:25","slug":"secret-weapon-fraud","status":"publish","type":"wherenext","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/secret-weapon-fraud","title":{"rendered":"A Secret Weapon against Fraud"},"author":421,"featured_media":5991,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"department":[476792],"wherenext-category":[],"industry":[],"class_list":["post-4161","wherenext","type-wherenext","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","department-cxo-priorities"],"acf":{"short_description":"If you knew that at least 5 percent of revenue was leaching out of your business, would you try to stop it?","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"It had been a volatile year at the Dallas office of a national insurance company. Tornadoes had ravaged the area in spring. Then a hailstorm marred an idyllic summer, smashing windshields and denting roofs. As summer faded, nature grew calm again. In the claims department, calls leveled off and adjusters cleared their backlog. The manager was keeping normal hours again.\r\n\r\nBut then, in early September, a raft of homeowner claims appeared, all involving roof damage from the hailstorm three months earlier. On its own, the time delay wasn\u2019t a red flag; the claims manager knew that homeowners often noticed damage when they cleaned their gutters in the fall. But the volume of claims was perplexing\u2014a dozen in three days.\r\n\r\nTo the manager, something seemed amiss. Technology confirmed it.\r\n\r\nShe began to explore the claims, plotting each address on a map in the company\u2019s geographic information system (GIS)<\/a>. On top of those addresses, she overlaid data from the National Weather Service, which had tracked the hail on the day in question. Nine of the addresses had been directly in the storm\u2019s path. But three of the houses had experienced no hail that day.\r\n\r\nThe information was definitive\u2014three of the properties had no business receiving a payout for damage claims\u2014but a mystery remained: why had a dozen claims appeared in a three-day period, three months after the storm? The answer came from a conversation with one of the homeowners affected by hail. As it turned out, a contractor had knocked on their door the prior week, mentioning the hailstorm and suggesting they might have roof damage they didn\u2019t know about. (The contractor also left a business card touting expertise in roof repair.)\r\n\r\nOf the three homeowners who hadn\u2019t been hit by hail but had filed claims, one or two might have made an innocent mistake. Perhaps they\u2019d been out of town on the day of the storm and misattributed roof damage to the hail. But the chances were good that at least one of the three knew they hadn\u2019t been hit by hail and sensed an opportunity for free repairs on unrelated damage. The GIS technology didn\u2019t explain anyone\u2019s motivation. But it did give the insurance company enough evidence to make an informed decision and avoid paying out on a possibly fraudulent claim."},{"acf_fc_layout":"quote","image":6001,"text":"Companies purchase insurance to cover many aspects of their business, but often neglect to take action to protect themselves against fraud.","author_name":"","author_profession_organization":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"What the claims manager knew\u2014and many companies overlook\u2014is the fact that fraud, like poker players, can have a tell. It often leaves footprints in specific locations, like the homes where owners claimed hail damage. And those clues are easiest to trace when viewed on a map or in a visualization.\r\n\r\nThus a\u00a0best practice for addressing fraud\u2014in the insurance industry and elsewhere\u2014is\u00a0early detection through GIS technology. This immediately puts fraud schemes in check, reduces payouts, and saves time spent on follow-up investigations.\r\n\r\n\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAn Unmistakable Impact <\/strong>\r\n\r\nEvery day, fraudsters are probing companies from within and without. Some are inflating expense reports, while others are hoping their phony invoices will sail through accounts payable unremarked. The most brazen are hatching embezzlement schemes that could threaten a company\u2019s future.\r\n\r\nTheir impact cannot be dismissed. In 2016, more than 23 percent of occupational fraud cases yielded a loss in excess of $1 million, according to a study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE)<\/a>. Over the course of a year, ACFE estimates that the average company loses 5 percent of its revenue to fraud. Add to that the growing prevalence of online fraud<\/a>, and the challenge grows even more significant.\r\n\r\nSome companies consider fraud the cost of doing business\u2014something you clean up after, rather than prevent. That thinking could stem from corporate laziness, but more often, it owes to the impression that fraud is too hard to detect.\r\n\r\nTo an extent, that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today, a high percentage of fraud cases come to light through decidedly old-fashioned channels, according to the ACFE report. In 2016, the most common of those was a tip\u20144 in 10 occupational fraud cases were detected that way. Only 17 percent were discovered by auditors. Technology plays an even smaller role, according to researchers at KPMG, who wrote this in a 2016 report<\/a>:\r\n\r\n\u201cProactive data analytics, searching for fraud amid anomalies and suspicious business activity, accounts for only 3% of frauds detected.\u201d\r\n\r\nAt that rate, a company might as well wait for a confession\u20141.3 percent of cases are reported by the fraudsters themselves, according to the ACFE.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Foundation of Fraud <\/strong>\r\n\r\nEach industry is prone to certain types of fraud. Manufacturers, for instance, are hit hardest by corruption, billing scams, and noncash threats, while insurance companies face corruption, skimming, and check tampering. (For a full look at industry-specific fraud, visit the ACFE report<\/a>.)\r\n\r\nAlthough fraud\u2019s complexion varies by industry, evidence of any kind of fraud often shares a characteristic: geography. With that, businesses can leverage technology\u2014often technology that\u2019s already used in other areas of the company\u2014to ferret out fraudulent activity."},{"acf_fc_layout":"quote","image":6001,"text":"Fraud, like poker players, can have a tell. It often leaves footprints in specific locations, and those clues are easiest to trace when viewed on a map or in a visualization.","author_name":"","author_profession_organization":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"No single technology detects all instances of fraud, but a geographic information system (GIS)<\/a> serves as the hub of many companies\u2019 efforts. With the help of data feeds from enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) systems, GIS can provide an enterprise-level view of operations and create intelligent maps that help managers track information anomalies to their source.\r\n\r\nFor executives looking to recoup the 5 percent of revenue they lose to fraud, technology delivers maximum return when it\u2019s part of a fraud risk management plan. Such a plan employs human intuition, integrated systems, data management, and analytics to spot data anomalies and predict risk.\r\n\r\nThe plan rests on three tenets: prevention, detection, and response.\r\n\r\n "},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"\"\"\r\n\r\nJoin our community of growth-minded executives and leaders in business and government. The Esri Brief links to the most thought-provoking articles on location intelligence and critical technology trends like IoT, digital transformation, data science, and smart technology. Sign up for a quick read that gives you precisely what you need to stay informed.\r\n\r\n[pardot-form id=\"9193\" title=\"WhereNext Sign Up Form - NEW\" height=\"380px\"]","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Prevention<\/strong>\r\n\r\nTo begin an assessment, fraud managers should list risk factors that are relevant to their business. Most industries have established lists of anomalies to watch for.\r\n\r\nFor instance, along the path that turns raw materials into finished goods, certain supply chain activities are common targets of fraud. Inventory loss and expense reimbursement, counterfeit products and stolen equipment\u2014these incidents occur time and again. Fortunately, most supply chain transactions have traceable digital elements\u2014vital clues for preventing unwelcome activity.\r\n\r\nOnce a company establishes which areas of the supply chain to police, technology can do its work. The manager can populate GIS with maps of previous incidents and use GIS modeling tools to identify locations with similar physical and environmental characteristics. That analysis helps managers recognize patterns, begin to understand the conditions that favor fraud, and take steps to prevent problems.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDetection<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe next step in the plan is to create practices that detect fraud.\r\n\r\nAs the ACFE study notes, most fraud cases are detected by whistle-blowers. Companies can encourage tips by making reporting easier. For instance, the fraud team might create a lightweight GIS app that lets employees, contractors, and vendors report illegal activity through their mobile devices. Users can geotag a photo; add notes; and send it to the compliance team, which can cross-check the report with relevant data and analyze the evidence."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":6011,"image_position":"left","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"But detection can\u2019t depend entirely on whistleblowers. Take the case of a national delivery business\u00a0that\u00a0used contractors to move packages along some midrange routes. Each contractor was issued a gas card for these trips, which could span hundreds of miles. When company managers used GIS to plot the gas purchases on a map (see image at left), they noticed that some were occurring more than 10 miles from the prescribed route. When they added the dollar value of transactions to the map, the areas of likely fraud lit up like beacons. In one case, inspectors nabbed a contractor that had racked up $5 million in fraudulent charges.\r\n\r\nIn the realm of detection, any of these conditions could indicate fraud:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  • Inventory levels that spike even as sales orders remain steady<\/li>\r\n \t
  • A work crew with above-average incidence of lost tools or equipment<\/li>\r\n \t
  • A single vendor that uses multiple addresses for receipt of payment or goods<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nLike the delivery-business inspectors and the insurance claims manager, a good fraud detection team knows that these cases share one trait: they are all easier to detect when viewed on a map.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nResponse<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIn any industry, executives and managers can create parameters for all kinds of activity\u2014from the dollar amount of transactions to the assigned work area of an employee. When those parameters are breached, a GIS tool can issue real-time alerts.\r\n\r\nThus begins the final phase of a fraud risk mitigation plan: the response.\r\n\r\nThe first step in a successful response is to document and investigate the conditions surrounding the incident. Companies can add security video, sensor data, and other evidence to a map for simple reference. All that information may eventually be used in court.\r\n\r\nOnce the investigation has run its course, successful companies convert what they\u2019ve learned into better policies and communicate those updates to employees and partners.\r\n\r\nIn a perfect world, no company would need to spend time and resources fighting fraud. But in a world where an average of 5 percent of revenue is being taken off the top line, most companies would be ill-advised to simply watch it go."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"\nHow GIS Technology Is Fighting Business Fraud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For executives looking to recoup the 5% of revenue they lose to business fraud, GIS technology delivers maximum return when it\u2019s part of a fraud risk management plan.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/secret-weapon-fraud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Secret Weapon against Fraud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For executives looking to recoup the 5% of revenue they lose to business fraud, 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