Should small-medium entities ignore AS 8001-2008?


Fraud, corruption and bribery control is vital to any business in mitigating risk (THEIIA, 2008).  I disagree with the statement that small-medium entities should ignore such standards like the Australian Standard (AS) 8001-2008. AS 8001-2008 provides a proactive approach for businesses to use in controlling fraud, bribery and corruption. Large business should implement the standard, whilst small-medium business will still benefit greatly from simply choosing relevant parts to assist them in developing their own fraud and risk mitigation program (Standards Australia, 2008).

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One of my close friend’s old workplace, a local café, fell victim to fraud due to their lack of implementation of a fraud management program. One worker, over the course of several months was able to take large sums of money. This eventually led to the café’s closure and in turn my friend and all her colleagues were out of employment.  

Despite being a small entity, this café would have benefited greatly from implementing relevant parts of the standard to develop an integrated fraud and control strategy. Whilst implementing a program displays good governance and management practice, it is fundamental to the prevention of fraud, bribery and corruption. Some of the processes the standard proposes is to establish the entities fraud objectives, set company-wide anti-fraud policies, develop a framework, on-going monitoring and improvement and more (Standards Australia, 2008).

My recommendation to small-medium entities is to understand the relevant parts of the AS 8001-2008 and use them to assist in implementing a risk mitigation program customised to their own workplace. Perhaps they should also look toward other strategies such as COBIT 5 or ISO 30000 in helping them develop an effective program.


Australian Standard 8001-2008:
 https://www.saiglobal.com/PDFTemp/Previews/OSH/AS/AS8000/8000/8001-2008.pdf

Other frameworks workplace can use to implement into their business for risk management: 
COBIT 5 : https://cobitonline.isaca.org/about
 ISO 30000 Standard:   https://www.iso.org/iso-31000-risk-management.html














REFERENCES

Standards Australia. (2008). Standard Australia AS 8001-2008 Fraud and Corruption Control. Retrieved from SAI GLOBAL: https://www.saiglobal.com/PDFTemp/Previews/OSH/AS/AS8000/8000/8001-2008.pdf
THEIIA. (2008). Managing the Business Risk of Fraud: a Practical guide. Retrieved from THEIIA: http://www.theiia.org/media/files/fraud-white-paper/fraud%20paper.pdf


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