Use your indicators

During a project related to anti-corruption benchmarking, a couple of compliance officers noted (paraphrasing): “We have data on emerging threats and trends in areas like cyber and even money laundering; why not for other risks?“

It’s a great question. Corruption, fraud, and even conflicts of interest (let alone E&S topics like human rights) are dynamic. To prove the point, the post-pandemic era opened up a world of WFH and remote working conflicts of interest issues.

A year ago, we launched the Risk Priority Profiler scorecard. In my view, it’s probably the best time-saver of all our assessments. It focuses on things (typically) within our control that we can do to manage risks better. I haven’t plugged it as much as I should, which I’m correcting. It is the kind of strategic tool I’d love to have (something that helps me focus with a blend of strategy, tactics, and implementation).

After getting that feedback about threats and trends for other risk areas, I looked at the data from one of the questions in the Risk Priority Profiler (image below). We’re now looking for university partners to help research these triggers, trends, and indicators (principally around corruption) to add to the increasing body of project and anecdotal evidence about emerging scams, tactics, and avenues for corruption. If any of you have aspirant researchers and academics who might be interested, let them/me know!