Discreet Corporate Inquiries for Data-Driven Decisions
Don't Wait for Trouble - Go Looking Proactively
Axeligence | Service Details
Overeview
Running a business involves juggling many complex moving parts. As an executive, you need to ensure compliance across all departments and uncover any potential misconduct early on. This allows you to take corrective action and make fully aware decisions for the company’s future.
Conducting discrete internal investigations is key to obtaining an in-depth understanding of your business practices. With an experienced investigation partner, you can dig deep into operations, employee activities, financials, and more. Read on to learn how bespoke internal inquiries lead to compliance, prevent misconduct, and enable accurate decision-making.
Benefits
Discreet internal inquiries offer many advantages for your company:
Ensure legal and regulatory compliance – Identify any areas, practices or employees that are not meeting requirements. Take corrective action to avoid fines and legal issues. Internal investigations help assess compliance risks across all departments – from marketing to HR to finance. Issues like FCPA violations, discrimination, harassment, safety violations and improper employment practices can be flagged early. This protects the company from regulatory fines, lawsuits and damage to reputation.
Uncover misconduct – Dig up unethical employee behaviors like fraud, theft, substance abuse, harassment, etc. early before things spiral. Take appropriate disciplinary action. Sometimes employee misconduct like harassment, violence, racism, embezzlement, etc. can be difficult to detect in normal operations. Targeted inquiries help uncover such behavioral issues so corrective action can be taken. Internal investigations also deter future misdeeds by increasing the perceived risk of getting caught.
Prevent future misdeeds – The risk of getting caught acts as a deterrent to prevent misconduct down the line. By taking decisive action against unethical behaviors uncovered, employees realize there are consequences to wrongdoing. This prevents issues from arising again down the line.
Support HR decisions – Investigate employee misconduct thoroughly before suspensions, terminations, etc. to avoid wrongful action. HR decisions like employee suspension, termination, issuing warnings or sanctions have serious legal ramifications if not backed by evidence. Internal inquiries help build an evidence-based case to support appropriate HR actions against guilty parties.
Avoid scandals and crises – Nip problems in the bud before they blow up publicly and damage your brand image and shareholder value. In today’s world, company scandals get amplified over social media creating PR nightmares. Discreet investigations identify high-risk behaviors early so they can be addressed before turning into media scandals. This type of proactive risk mitigation helps protect brand reputation.
Enable leadership decisions – Provide in-depth intelligence on company issues to support executive decision-making on strategy. The insights from internal investigations give leaders an information advantage to make smart decisions. Data-driven intelligence minimizes blind-spots so strategies can be shaped considering all factors.
Strengthen internal controls – Identify weak links and recommend improved protocols and procedures. Investigations pinpoint exactly where internal controls have failed or are lacking. This enables designing more robust controls and protocols across functions to prevent future issues.
In essence, internal inquiries support your company’s compliance, ethics and growth objectives. They empower leadership with timely intelligence to steer informed decisions.
Service Details
Our team of experienced investigators conducts discreet yet thorough inquiries covering:
Employee activities – including fraud, theft, substance abuse, harassment, etc. We look into behaviors like workplace harassment, violence, discrimination, racism, fraud, embezzlement, leaking of confidential data and other policy violations. Skilled interviews, surveillance techniques and digital forensics help uncover such employee misconduct that can seriously impact company operations and culture.
Financial irregularities – embezzlement, misuse of company funds, accounting manipulation, etc. Our forensic accounting specialists identify anomalies in spend, accounting treatments, financial statements and disclosures that could indicate larger issues like fraud or mismanagement. Transactions are analyzed to a granular level to identify any malpractice.
Operational risks – safety violations, data breaches, regulatory noncompliance, etc. We look for red flags indicating operational risks like lax safety practices, data leaks, environmental hazards, regulatory violations and cybersecurity gaps. Such issues can lead to lawsuits, fines and other serious consequences if left unaddressed. Our investigations identify them proactively.
Leaks of confidential information – to competitors, media, analysts, etc. Employees leaking sensitive data, intellectual property or insider information outside the company can severely impact operations and competitive advantage. We discreetly look for such security risks across email, devices, systems and employee communications channels.
Policy violations across departments – FCPA violations, corruption, discrimination, etc. Our inquiries cover compliance across all departments when it comes to policies on employee conduct, regulatory issues, safety, data security, corruption, expenses and other aspects. Any violations are flagged for taking disciplinary action and bolstering internal controls.
Other impactful risks unique to your company – We focus each inquiry on your specific risk concerns and business practices. Our scope is customized only to areas that can truly impact your operations, compliance and growth.
We use proprietary methods for obtaining intelligence including surveillance, computer forensics, interviews, and more. Our inquiries are conducted with utmost discretion to avoid tipping off the subjects of investigation. The end deliverable is an insightful report of findings and recommendations to enable your decisions.
The Process
Here is an overview of our typical end-to-end investigation process:
Scope definition – We start by comprehensively understanding your specific concerns and define the scope of the investigation. We learn about your business processes, employee activities, nature of operations, regulatory requirements, existing controls, and high-risk areas. This allows us to customize inquiries that yield actionable intelligence for your needs.
Fact finding – Our team discreetly gathers information through interviews, data analysis, surveillance, computer forensics and other proprietary methods. We leave no stone unturned in digging up and correlating findings from all possible sources. Subject employees have no idea an investigation is in progress.
Corroboration – We analyze and corroborate all findings through multiple sources to build an airtight evidence-based case. Any employee misconduct or compliance issues identified are verified across different techniques and data sources. All evidence collected can stand up to legal scrutiny.
Reporting – Once the investigation is complete, we provide detailed reports of all findings and our recommendations. Our reports cover the allegations or issues investigated, investigation procedures, evidence gathered, analysis of findings, conclusions and recommended next steps. The reports are designed to enable decision-making for executives, legal counsel, HR and other stakeholders.
Testimony – If required, our expert investigators can also testify to explain the investigation process and evidence in legal proceedings. Our team is experienced with depositions, regulatory proceedings, HR meetings and court testimonies if your case must be presented formally at any stage.
Follow-up – We follow up on any actions taken based on our findings and recommendations. Following your directives, we also implement controls to proactively monitor high-risk employees or functions uncovered by the investigation. This prevents issues from creeping up again after corrective actions.
Throughout the process, we maintain complete confidentiality and our activities are virtually undetectable to subject employees. Our singular focus is getting you the intelligence needed to take appropriate and timely action.
Key Investigation Capabilities
We utilize proven techniques and the latest technology to obtain in-depth intelligence:
Interviews – Skilled interviewing to extract insights from employees, ex-employees, vendors, customers and other sources. Using proven techniques, we obtain information from informed parties discreetly without raising suspicion.
Undercover operatives – Plants discreetly placed to observe activities and record information. We can insert undercover resources into your organization to observe high-risk employees or functions. Well-trained undercover operatives spot policy violations or misconduct.
Surveillance – Electronic and physical surveillance through sophisticated tech and investigators. Based on risk areas, we conduct clandestine electronic monitoring and physical observation. All activities are recorded for compiling evidence.
Computer forensics – Recovering digital evidence by analyzing hard drives, online accounts, networks, mobile devices, etc. Our cyber forensics specialists can extract employee communications, files, browsing history and other digital evidence from company and personal devices, cloud accounts, networks, etc.
Thorough analysis – Carefully piecing together information from multiple sources to build an evidence-based factual case. Rather than relying on one red flag or source, we corroborate all findings through multiple techniques. This establishes an irrefutable case for follow-up action.
Proactive monitoring – Ongoing monitoring for prevention of issues before they arise. Based on investigation findings, we can install controls for proactively monitoring high-risk employees, functions or systems. We detect compliance failures or misconduct proactively through constant vigilance.
Testifying expertise – Our investigative experts can eloquently testify on the stand if required. We can explain procedures, analysis, findings and recommendations when testifying in HR meetings, court cases and regulatory proceedings. Our experts are experienced with providing convincing testimony.
Legal expertise – Guidance from experienced prosecutors helps conduct defensible investigations. We ensure that all evidence collected and investigation practices will hold up in legal proceedings if required. Our process is designed carefully in close coordination with legal experts.
Partner resources – We leverage relationships with surveillance, cybersecurity, forensic accounting and specialized legal partners. This allows us to deploy additional capabilities and resources flexibly based on investigation needs.
Our use of sound investigative approaches and latest technology ensures no stone is left unturned. With multiple information sources and proven methodology, we build an accurate understanding of compliance risks and employee behaviors affecting your business.
FAQ'S
How do you maintain confidentiality during inquiries?
We utilize encrypted channels, anonymous sources, discreet surveillance and other proven measures to ensure our investigations are undetected by subject employees. Our activities appear routine and draw no suspicion. Subjects only come to know if misconduct is unearthed and disciplinary action is taken.
What employee behaviors do you investigate?
We uncover policy violations, legal/regulatory noncompliance, harassment, discrimination, workplace violence, fraud, theft, embezzlement, substance abuse, leaks of confidential data and other misconduct. Essentially any behaviors that can adversely impact your business, culture, compliance or growth.
Do you investigate personal life issues?
No. We focus solely on job-related activities and issues that can impact your business such as policy violations, illegal activities and misconduct. Personal aspects unrelated to work are off limits. Our scope covers only professional malpractice and behaviors.
Can your findings hold up in court?
Absolutely. Our expert investigators are experienced with legal proceedings and can eloquently explain the investigation process and findings in court if required. Our evidence gathering and reporting procedures are designed carefully to hold up to legal scrutiny.
What if an investigation uncovers no actionable issues?
No problem. Negative findings provide assurance and peace of mind that operations are running properly. We only charge you if actual issues requiring corrective action are unearthed. For inquiries where no concrete issues are found, we waive our fees.
How quickly can you begin an inquiry?
We can get started right away and move urgently to provide you timely intelligence. Just reach out so we can get a confidential conversation started and dive into the specifics. We staff each case with an expert team and conduct the investigation on an expedited priority.
Can you investigate our competitors?
No. We only conduct internal investigations within your company to identify risks, compliance issues and employee misconduct. Investigating third parties would be unethical and likely illegal. We focus solely on your internal affairs.
Will our employees find out about an investigation?
Extremely unlikely. We conduct inquiries with utmost discretion using surveillance, anonymous sources and discreet interviews. Employees will only find out if concrete issues are unearthed necessitating disciplinary action. Our investigations are virtually undetectable to subject employees.
What happens if an implicated employee challenges your findings?
Our consistent processes and multi-source diligent evidence gathering ensures implicating findings are fully defensible. We can stand ground on investigation results and provide testimony if challenged in legal proceedings or otherwise. Our sole aim is uncovering the truth through proven techniques.
Don’t let compliance issues, misconduct and blind-spots in your business go unchecked. With experienced investigation experts, you can uncover problems early before they become crises. Let us conduct targeted, discreet inquiries to obtain the intelligence you need for informed decisions.
Speak to a Dedicated Specialist:
Your privacy is our top priority, we take serious measures to ensure the protection of the data you entrust to us.
Former Israeli Special Forces officer, with over a decade of duty in vital national security roles.
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