ACFE publishes updated benchmarking report

Organizations throughout the world use benchmarking data to evaluate how their performance, structure and operations compare to those of their peers. Benefits of benchmarking include assessing operational efficiency, pinpointing knowledge gaps and identifying areas for potential improvements.

Because benchmarking has become an adopted best practice, we’ve frequently heard from you — our members — about your desire to benchmark your organizations’ internal fraud investigation teams. Your organizations often have historical data about your own investigation teams but lack access to similar data from other organizations.

In 2015, we released our first benchmarking report for fraud investigation teams, and the response was incredibly positive. We knew there was a need for this type of data, but we received so much feedback — from members and non-members in all industries from countries around the world — that this was the information they’d been waiting for. So, in January 2017 we conducted our second Fraud Investigation Team Benchmarking Survey, and we now present our report that explores the results of that survey.

To collect the data for our latest benchmarking report, we sent a 24-question survey to all ACFE members who work as part of in-house teams that perform fraud investigations for their employing organizations. We excluded those respondents who perform fraud investigations on behalf of other organizations (e.g., those who work for professional services firms or law enforcement agencies that investigate frauds at other organizations). We received a total of 2,808 survey responses — 1,485 of which we could use for purposes of our study.

Using the data collected, we analyzed numerous metrics regarding internal fraud investigation teams, including:

• How teams are structured.
• The typical workload for teams.
• Software used by teams.
• Fraud investigation case results.
• How management evaluates the effectiveness of teams.

The resulting In-House Fraud Investigation Teams: 2017 Benchmarking Report explores these and other topics that you can use to compare your investigation team with teams of similar sizes or in the same industry and to evaluate your team’s processes and allocation of resources. We believe this report will assist you and your organization’s leaders in assessing your fraud investigation team and planning for your future anti-fraud initiatives. Members can download this report for free.

Non-members may purchase the report for $129.

Send your ideas for additional benchmarking metrics to Research@ACFE.com.