Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne Australia

No flatfoots in managing crime response

Story by Rebecca Thyer

When it comes to flushing out the underworld, an accountant may not be the first crime fighter that comes to mind. But then, if the purpose of crime is to plunder and hide money ... what better sleuth could there be?

Law enforcement agencies have long understood this - their real challenge being to keep abreast of the criminal ingenuity that works ceaselessly to contrive new ways to steal, or conceal, illegal funds.

Like any challenge with complex scenarios, finding answers inevitably needs careful and detailed research, which is where a new project to help keep enforcement agency systems up-to-date, flexible and effective comes in.

In July this year Swinburne University of Technology appointed Accounting Professor Suresh Cuganesan, who brings with him a $700,000 Australian Research Council Linkage grant, to work with the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) and Victoria Police on strengthening their systems and processes. The initial objective is to determine how management control systems and business structures influence flexibility, control and performance in organisations that are up against targets whose methods are constantly shifting.

"It is a situation where those you are fighting are always looking for a loophole in your system," Professor Cuganesan says.

He says the first step to counter this is to know what a policing organisation should be aiming for in terms of strategy, then being able to execute that strategy where different capabilities, skill sets and mindsets are required ... and execute it rapidly.

Working with Professor Cuganesan is Victoria Police Detective Superintendent Richard Grant APM. He says the world of organised crime is fluid, flexible, dynamic and networked: "So, everything we do has to emulate that environment."

In 2006, Victoria Police's Crime Department established a new operating model underpinned by four fundamental principles: the need to be strategic, developmental, dynamic and collaborative.

"The research we are undertaking with Suresh is helping us to ensure that our business model is delivering on these principles," Detective Superintendent Grant says. "To that end, the project is establishing performance measures to better understand law enforcement's effectiveness."

Like Victoria Police, the ACC - whose mandate is to unite the fight against serious and organised crime and, in partnership with state, territory and Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, to respond to it - has also found that crime groups operating in Australia are very flexible.

ACC chief executive officer Alastair Milroy says crime groups are always seeking new opportunities, with new markets and new commodities, and traditional responses and structures have limited value in this changing environment. "For example, if a criminal group that is focused on a certain commodity or market suddenly splinters and forms into new groups, the ACC needs to know whether the people and strategies it has focused on that criminal group should similarly change. The key is to predict when crime groups are about to change their approach so we can stay ahead of them."

It is hoped the research now under way will help authorities to make the right call.

Mr Milroy says law enforcement agencies know what responses and skill sets they require, but need to be able to predict when circumstances are going to change so their responses are appropriate.

Both the ACC and Victoria Police have worked with Professor Cuganesan before on similar projects, but Superintendent Grant says this one has surprised him: "Not being in academia, when it first started I thought it would be a bit dry, but it is really interesting and the beauty of it is that it is really starting to challenge our thinking. And it will not just benefit us. It will be relevant for law enforcement agencies across Australia."

Professor Cuganesan says similar challenges confront other industries, especially those in information communications and technology. "They often face fast-changing conditions and need to be agile and flexible to cope with them."

The collaborative project started in early 2008 when Professor Cuganesan was at Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) and so far the team - Professor Cuganesan, plus Professor Ian Palmer from the University of Technology, Sydney, and Professor Richard Dunford from the University of Sydney - is working on getting a base-case scenario of the situation both law enforcement organisations face. "We are working to understand what needs they have and how they are responding to the challenges they face."

Professor Cuganesan says the ability to respond quickly to change is an issue that is continually raised in management. "Contemporary management literature emphasises agility, innovation, re-invention - the whole idea of continuously finding different sources of competitive advantage. Although that is all related to the private sector it does speak to this point, in that we are living in a time-compressed environment and businesses and organisations need to know how to respond."

Helping crime-fighting organisations might seem far removed from calculators and spreadsheets, but Professor Cuganesan says this project typifies modern accounting.Although he says the more 'financial' side of accounting will always be important, the need to engage with a business and its employees holistically is becoming increasingly necessary. "That is what I would like to instil through my teaching and research - we are working with businesses, not for businesses," he says.

This wider world of accounting - its integration with management and control systems and the research behind this - was far from Professor Cuganesan's mind when he embarked on his undergraduate degree at the University of NSW, majoring in accounting and finance while working at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

"I think at the start of my career, the world of business appealed to me, hence the commerce degree, but then through exposure to research via the honours program, my passion for research emerged."

Professor Cuganesan graduated with first class honours from UNSW in 1995 and completed a Masters of Commerce (Honours) at UNSW in 1997. Then, as is the case for many young antipodeans, Europe beckoned and he took time out to travel, paying his way by working in a bar in London.

On his return to Australia Professor Cuganesan re-entered the financial world - working (twice) for SIRCA (the Securities Industry Research Centre of Asia-Pacific), and for Westpac's Institutional Bank - while undertaking a PhD at UNSW on performance measurement in customer-focused organisations. He joined MGSM in 2003, working his way up to Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Research) by 2006.

He says that through it all, he has retained a passion for research. "I enjoy the intellectual challenge of applying rigorous research methodologies to industry problems. It is a passion. It is a consistent theme through what I have done."

The wish to be closer to where his ARC-funded work is based, and to experience a new city, helped persuade Professor Cuganesan to move from Sydney to Melbourne, but he says the standout attraction was that Swinburne's passion for research matched his own."I was looking for a place that wanted to grow and be aggressive in its growth. Vice-Chancellor Ian Young has a well-defined vision that sees Swinburne positioned strongly and 'punching above its weight'. That appealed to me. Swinburne has done really well in the sciences and is now looking to build in the business research portfolio."

Another element in Professor Cuganesan's decision was his ambition to build a research centre that mobilises the world of research and academia to issues and challenges facing business generally. The centre has yet to be formally approved, but he is hopeful it will be operational by January 2009, and he aims to be part of its drive to deliver research excellence that flows back to students.

Getting postgraduates to reflect on their managerial experience helps bring learning to a new level, he says. "That is what I want as part of my teaching at Swinburne: to make it as experiential and research-based as possible."

Introducing students to this broader field of accounting, while emphasising the importance of research, is another teaching goal: "My view is that the worlds of accounting and business should be integrated in the same way that research should be integrated into teaching. If you can demonstrate the value of research to practicing managers, then hopefully they are more open to the value that research can provide once they are back in their offices."

A young professor, Professor Cuganesan regards his age and zeal as having real-world echoes. "In the world of business a lot of young entrepreneurs have been successful, so people are not surprised by my youth because there are a lot of precedents."

He likens his enthusiasm for teaching, research and outcome-based results to what his peers are striving to achieve in the business world. "I am driven, entrepreneurial and outcome-focused and I think that's the same as people out there in business. If we can recast academia in those terms then we are better for it.