Tendency of corporates to hush up things changing: Deloitte
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At a time when corporate scandals are on the rise, a senior official of global audit major Deloitte has said that tendency of businesses to hush up uncomfortable facts is slowly changing worldwide, including in India.
Nowadays, corporates seem to be more willing to accept that bad things have happened and take measures to tackle the problems, Deloitte's Global Leader (Forensic) Tim Phillipps said in an interview.
Responding to a query on whether most companies are willing to accept the facts found during auditing process or prefer to hush up uncomfortable things, Phillipps said there were also elements of the latter.
This tendency has been witnessed worldwide, including in India.
"There is an element of the latter. More and more it is changing... Okay, that's bad news. Let's do something about it (that's how most companies now respond)," he said.
Based in Singapore, Phillipps, also the Global Leader (Analytics) at Deloitte, has developed analytics capabilities in support of fraud and corruption investigations and money laundering compliance, among others.
In a major corporate scandal after Satyam fiasco in India, Reebok has alleged fraud by its former top executives.
Adidas-owned Reebok India in May filed an FIR, alleging that its former managing director Prem and chief operating officer Vishnu Bhagat were involved in Rs 870 crore fraud by indulging in criminal conspiracy and fraudulent practices over a period of time.
When asked about India scenario, Phillipps said that in recent times more and more Indian companies were wanting to become more transparent.
However, he pointed out that the challenge faced by India was that of a reputational one, that too 'in the negative sense'.
"India had a fantastic reputation as a really upcoming economy and that image has been stuck a bit recently due to some of the corruption issues and others," he said.
According to him, the level of corruption scandals and negative sentiment about corruption are gaining momentum.
"This is making investors cautious ... The corruption image is proving to be very difficult. This is a problem every where not just in India," he noted.
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