Howells Shepherd International - Risk Reduction Services RRS

Financial Crime Prevention FCP

Fraud Prevention....Operational Risk Management....Risk Analysis....Critical Point Analysis

These and many more phrases are used in our industry to promote a service to help businesses reduce the threat and risk element to their operations. The term we use, Financial Crime Prevention, is generic on the basis that it is not really possible to define each type of risk to a business because it depends so much on where the threat is coming from. That is often industry specific.

Is the risk from internal or external sources? Various research suggests that 70% of the threat is from internal sources. This can be sub-divided from a people perspective into senior and middle management, and the general work force.

At director level the losses are likely to be quite spectacular often resulting in the collapse of the business (e.g. Enron, Maxwell etc.), but fortunately they are not too common.

Middle management can be more devious. Their motives are varied. Revenge for a lack of promotion or recognition for a business idea are just two such motivators. They will often set up parallel trading companies, sell proprietary information or seek bribes for the awards of contract. As time develops these activities become like a cancer spreading through a business. We have identified some quite amazing examples.

The work force, depending on the industry, can be quite creative. Loss of goods in transit, enhancement of overtime and expenses, abuse of systems for their own ends i.e. bogus accounts, theft of assets and many more activities. Generally the losses are smaller but much more regular.

The risk comes in many guises and can impact specific areas of the business. Your property portfolio, computing and IT units, pension funds, loss of intellectual property and a reduction in competitive advantage, but the two keys areas all these activities impact on are:

Loss of revenue - and remember this loss is against the profits of the business.

Loss of reputation - this form of damage can last almost indefinitely.

We work across many industries giving our team a broad base of experience, but more importantly, the knowledge learnt from one industry can be of tremendous value in another.

What can we do for you:

First we will listen. You know your business best. Our objective will be to enhance and protect what you already do. Then we will carry out a risk and threat assessment in the areas of concern to you, but we also keep an over-view on the business as we carry out our review to identify any other areas of risk.

What we will not do:

Tell you we can do something when we cannot. Our reputation is too important for that and our policy with clients is founded on honesty and integrity. We would rather lose your business than affect our reputation.

Give you a 500 page report that will just sit on a shelf gathering dust. Our report will be concise, clearly presented in the appropriate format, and if required, we will help bed-in the new ideas within the business by way of training, support etc.

The benefits of FCP:

Board level comfort and reduction in director liability
Increased shareholder value
Optimise profits
Reduce the risk of fraud
Safeguard reputation, brands, assets and intellectual property
Create greater stability within the business