Forensic Data Analytics

EY Forensic Data Analytics (FDA) is a critical element of forensic services provided to organisations – whether it is an investigation, compliance digital transformation, forensic diligence, a complex litigation or a dispute. Our professionals are experienced in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data engineering, natural language processing and robotic process automation.

Related topics Assurance Forensics Digital AI Data and decision intelligence

The team

Carl Judge

Carl Judge

EY UK&I Head of Forensic Technology

Stephen Campbell

Stephen Campbell

Partner, Forensic & Integrity Services, Ernst & Young LLP

Christopher Winter

Christopher Winter

Partner, Forensic & Integrity Services, Ernst & Young LLP

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What EY can do for you

EY teams harness their industry experience with data science and analytics capabilities to assist businesses in detecting and investigating data breaches, fraud, waste, misuse and non-compliance. We support our clients with a broad range of services from regulatory support to litigation responses, forming a comprehensive solution to corporate compliance and regulatory needs. 

Forensic Data Analytics

EY Forensic Data Analytics professionals employ machine learning, natural language processing and process automation techniques to aid in identifying internal control weaknesses, augmenting risk visibility and improving business risk understanding. Our efforts to minimise both the likelihood and volume of losses assist clients in cutting compliance costs. Our advanced Forensic Data Analytics tools provide the necessary evidence for businesses to make actionable legal and compliance decisions, optimising the use of their investigative resources.

  • Fraud and digital compliance analytics

    Businesses today want and need to demonstrate that they operate with integrity and take actions to prevent fraud and misconduct. We identify the patterns in business transactions, operational data and other sources to build a comprehensive picture of potentially fraudulent and risky behaviour, such as bribery and corruption. 

    We help organisations to:

    • Detect and mitigate financial mis-statement risks, asset misappropriation, abuse of incentive schemes or corrupt business practices, using our suite of technologies designed specifically for these needs.

    • Match available data sources to the risks identified in a fraud risk assessment to design meaningful key risk indicators for use in continuous automated monitoring. 

    • Develop data science models to expand detection beyond rule-based controls, to surface behaviours underlying compliance breaches predictively.

    • Reduce fraud and misconduct-related compliance monitoring costs through automation and systematically reducing the number of false positives that require investigation.

    • Transform counter-fraud and compliance from a cost centre to a profit centre, where leakage is reduced, underlying behaviours are understood and profitable opportunities are discovered.

  • Third-party risk management (TPRM) and sanctions

    TPRM tools enable our clients to effectively manage supplier risk, including sanctions risk and supplier due diligence. 

    We help organisations to:

    • Analyse accounts payable data using our prebuilt diagnostic solutions to identify risky suppliers and business entities.
    • Rapidly assimilate millions of lines of transactional data to identify actionable issues and real insight, not thousands of false positives.
    • Scan vendors and customers using our sanctions screening tool to check for compliance with the United Nations (UN) and other international sanctions regulations.

  • Contract review and optimisation

    Contracts review helps clients to reduce the cost of a dispute and recover overcharging through error or fraud by a supplier.

    Contract analyser

    Analyse large volumes of legal documents using an automated process, to transform unstructured contracts into structured data and present it in user-friendly interface. This technology uses advance natural language processing to help clients:

    • Review the consistency of thousands of legal documents.
    • Review usage of key terms.
    • Ask better questions and annotate key contract elements.
    Supplier contract review

    Data-driven forensic contract review services to identify overcharging by the suppliers (or customers). Examples of our process include:

    • Sourcing, processing, and hosting of various data artefacts including invoices, timesheets and payments from the client and the supplier (or customer).
    • Reconciliation of logged hours with billed hours, identification of duplicates and erroneous outliers at different aggregation levels for further investigations.

  • Environmental, social and governance (ESG)

    We help firms to provide transparency and accountability to stakeholders, as well as assurance to management teams and those in charge of governance of ESG information.

    Our services include:

    • Integrated reports, including sustainability, ESG, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) or corporate responsibility reports.
    • Claims and disputes services related to social and environmental outcomes of specific products or services.
    • Greenhouse gas emissions, including organisational or life cycle product greenhouse gas emissions inventories.
    • Carbon credits or offsets issues under voluntary and regulatory standards.
    • Customer or supplier data environmental due diligence analytics.

Software asset management (SAM)

SAM is the business strategy that enables increased visibility into the use of software assets, allowing clients to reclaim budget and maximise investment by actively controlling and automating the procurement and deployment of software licenses.

We help organisations to:

  • Identify and mitigate compliance risk related to the licensing of software assets.
  • Prepare for software renewals and license audits by implementing effective processes and governance.
  • Optimise software investment by leveraging existing tools to gain new insights.
  • Transform IT management and monitoring functions by automating discovery and reporting capabilities.

  • Vendor risk assessment

    We help organisations to:

    • Establish a hierarchy of software vendors based on market-tested criteria to identify and evaluate risk.
    • Develop an approach to strategically address the risk associated with priority software vendors.

  • Renewal and audit support

    We help organisations to:

    • Create reporting and dashboards to clearly illustrate license positions for each vendor, including services under IBM’s Authorised SAM Providers (IASP) programme.
    • Advise on best practices to remediate under-licensing and surplus licensing.
    • Support in communicating license positions with vendors to enable fair negotiations.

  • Cost optimisation

    We help organisations to assess the current software landscape to identify cost reduction opportunities and maximise value through the following activities:

    • Total asset lifecycle management (plan, procure, deploy, manage, retire).
    • Rationalisation and harvesting of under-utilised or surplus software licenses.
    • Identify overlapping or redundant solutions.

  • Governance framework

    We help organisations to:

    • Develop a governance framework and a SAM operating model based on an in-depth assessment of current capabilities and an understanding of future objectives.

  • SAM tool selection and implementation support

    We help organisations to:

    • Assess and recommend SAM tool options relative to your requirements and preferences.
    • Map the strengths and weaknesses of tool options in relation to your IT infrastructure, business constraints and overall SAM strategy.
    • Support in the implementation of the selected SAM tool to promote return on your investment through reporting accuracy, coverage and reliability.

  • SAM transformation support

    We help organisations to:

    • Develop an approach to enhanced SAM effectiveness by transforming IT asset data into a driver for business intelligence

  • IP dispute support

    We provide forensic data analytic support to organisations pursuing, or defending against, claims of intellectual property (IP) rights infringement, including: 

    • Unauthorised use of proprietary source code.
    • Unpaid royalties.
    • Illegitimate or illegal software usage via “cracked” or pirated software keys.
    • An assessment of non-compliance penalties or fines stemming from a software license audit.
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EY Virtual

The next generation forensic data analytics platform integrating human and machine intelligence. 

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