The following information relates to the fictional company ‘Stateside Sports Limited’. Any similarities to actual situations or companies is purely coincidental.
Information:
Stateside Sports Limited is a business which buys in clothing and merchandise for major sports teams in North America and sells them to consumers through their own chain of shops in the UK and also to other sports shops for them to sell on. They have about 25 shops throughout the UK which sell direct to consumers. Each shop has its own batch of stock and is responsible for the collection of money from customers, their own bank account and management of their own inventory levels. Orders of inventory are made by each store manager. The company has a high level of staff turnover in their stores as they often employ young students or those looking for temporary and part time work. The majority of their staff are paid minimum wage in stores (with the exception of managers/supervisors).
The company protects their inventory with tags to prevent theft of products by the public. The tags are put onto the products by the staff when the delivery is made to the store. Each product has the tag removed when the item is sold.
At present the head office of the business do not exercise significant levels of control or autonomy over the individual stores as results have been good and thus they have not felt the need to monitor results other than sales and bottom line profit.
However the business is looking to grow and in order to do so they are aware that they need to tighten their belts in terms of slack and inefficiencies. This includes the risk of occupational fraud committed by their staff.
Requirement:
You have been employed by the company on a consultancy basis to prepare a presentation and notes to report on the business and the risk of occupational fraud with specific focus on cash fraud and inventory misappropriation. As well as the risks