Organisations need to move procurement fraud prevention closer to the point where suspicious activity occurs, rather than relying primarily on investigations after money has already been lost, according to SAS and FACTS Consulting.
The call follows SAS’s Continuous Monitoring for Procurement Integrity client session held at its Johannesburg offices on 19 August, where the discussion focused on how continuous monitoring and AI-driven analytics can help organisations identify vulnerabilities earlier and strengthen controls while improving transparency across procurement operations.
Chris McAuley, Director of Fraud and Security Intelligence for SAS EMEA and APAC, says procurement activity often spans fragmented systems and large volumes of data, while many organisations still lack an independent monitoring capability across the procurement environment.
“By the time an irregularity reaches an audit or investigation, the organisation may already be dealing with the financial and operational consequences. Continuous monitoring changes the timing. It gives organisations a way to look across procurement activity as it happens and identify emerging indicators that deserve investigation before the exposure grows,” says McAuley.
