Challenge
Manual, nonstandardized T&E expense audit process and limited employee spend data visibility
The company was using different expense management systems, and there were multiple ways employees could submit their expense reports, which led to expense auditing challenges. The company had limited audit, fraud, and regulatory risk coverage due to sample-based audits. Additionally, it struggled with limited visibility of T&E spend data and, as a result, couldn't track or report on its data well enough to manage noncompliant expenses and payments, high-risk spend, spend leakage, and repeat offenders.
Solution
Domain-led and AI-powered expense management solution for enhanced compliance
The pharmaceutical company was a perfect candidate for our compliance-as-a-service solution. This offering combines Genpact's expertise in risk and compliance and digital transformation, alongside our alliance partner AppZen's specialized artificial intelligence platform for finance.
We began by introducing the client to the benefits and setting up the process of an AI-enabled expense management solution. Its positive response led us to create a transition plan based on six country clusters that could be transformed one after another. For each cluster, we then gathered business requirements and developed custom AI models and policy configurations. To make sure everything worked flawlessly, we performed a parallel run test of our automation.
With each of the six waves of implementation, the company received:
AI-enabled review of expense reports
Advanced analytics to allow checks for unallowable and higher-than-threshold expenses and suspicious merchant checks, confirmation of average prices, and other fraud and regulatory reviews
Optimized dashboards for a 360-degree near-real-time view of all expense data
An analytics-based expense review system, with a focus on fraud and regulatory risk coverage
The capacity to identify root causes for corrective action
Impact
Institutionalizing compliance and arresting spend leakage with AI-enabled expense audit management
The improvements to the company's T&E expense management processes have yielded significant results. By updating its historical ways of working with our AI-driven solution, it can now effectively address fraud and risk, identify and manage repeat offenders, steer clear of sanctioned parties, and resolve issues right at the source. We've also made the company's T&E expense audits more efficient and helped prevent unnecessary spending. Our solution:
Standardized the company's T&E expense audit management process in over 70 countries
Activated full AI-enabled review of expense reports, between 25-30% audit of high-risk transactions by our risk and compliance experts, which significantly enhanced compliance
Delivered immediate identification of high-risk expenses, saving line managers time and effort
Enabled better visibility of exceptions for management through interactive dashboards
Facilitated the audit team's review of exceptions with more detail
Delivered 0.5% of total T&E spend as savings, within the first only 12 months
- Reduced manager review time by 70%
- Enhanced compliance through proactive avoidance of fraud and regulatory violations
The pharmaceutical giant is now proactive in mitigating its T&E expense management risks and uses our AI-enabled solution to save audit time and effort. It can quickly spot and address fraud and spend leakage, comply fully with regulations, and improve expense management through advanced analytics.
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