Lessons learnt from Satyam fraud by a SAP GRC Consultant

India’s biggest ever corporate fraud worth of 7000 crores at Satyam Computers proved to be beneficial for me. It gave me clear understanding of my Job profile and gave me justification for the way of doing my Job. I always use to wonder why I am creating such rules which are going to put unnecessary controls and checks over people. These controls may hamper their efficiency. This may slow down their work.
I work for SAP GRC (Governance Risk & Compliance) application. In this, I design rules to maintain a strict Segregation of Duties (SoDs) in an organization. SoDs are a primary internal control intended to prevent, or decrease the risk of errors or irregularities, identify problems, and ensure corrective action is taken. This is achieved by assuring no single individual has control over all phases of a business transaction. In an ideal system, different employees perform each of these four major functions. In other words, no one employee has control of two or more of these responsibilities. The more negotiable the asset, the greater the need for proper segregation of duties - especially when dealing with cash, negotiable checks and inventories. There are business areas where SoDs are extremely important. For example, Cash handling, because cash is a highly liquid asset. This means it is easy to take money and spend it without leaving a trail of where it went. Any department that accepts funds, has access to accounting records, or has control over any type of asset should be concerned with segregation of duties.
In simple words, each business transaction should be recorded and not a single person should have a control over an entire business process. Especially, every single penny coming into company and going out should be booked and maintained for future. Rules designed by me help my client in maintaining this SoD at every level hence keeping its accounting books clean.
When I look at fraud at Satyam Computers, then I see that I am helping my client to record and monitor every business transaction. In the end, if someone wants manipulate account book then there won’t be much scope for him since every single penny coming to company and going out of company is booked.
Another thing that used to irritate me was several levels of approvals before doing a single change in the client’s system. Now, I can understand that rules designed by me are going to affect many critical business transaction which needs to checked and recorded. This is the reason that I am not allowed to make any mistake. Hence I need so many approvals before putting any rules in the system.

Terror attack on Mumbai: Nation rise up against Politicians

 

India saw the new face of terror in mumbai on 26th November 2008. Terrorist were able to keep entire indian security establishment engaged for three days. A country of more than one billion people do not have proper intelligence network and neither have got trained security people who can fight with 10-12 terrorist.  It took three days for our elite Natinal Security Guards(NSG) to free 3 hotels in prime location of mumbai from terrorists. 

People saw the worst of it after this tragedy, Politicians started to blame each other for this . Everyone is trying cash in from this unfortunate incident. I being a citizen of india is forced to think that everything wrong happening is this country is due to pity politics of our so called leaders. They are ready to encash any incident in this country. People are voicing their views against these corrupt politicians and it's not against any particular party. Politicians should understand that we elect them for having proper law and order in this country. If they are unable to provide a safe enviroment for us then they should stop calling themselves our Leaders. 

Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic of India elected a woman as constitutional head of the Executive of the Union in the history of 57 years being a republic..
From last three presidential election country is witnessing a dangerous trend in which candidates are selected as promoted on the basis of their caste, religion or sex. Mr. K.R. Narayanan was promoted as a dalit president and in the mean time all his other qualities were of no use to him to stand as a president candidate . Only his caste of birth was issue to all political parties. Mr. A.P.J. Abdul kalam was promoted as a minority president. His being a great scientist who contributed towards the development of this country was a non issue.. Now, In this election country saw the promotion of congress candidate as a woman president.
After witnessing all this i asked some questions to me..

Do India need a minority,dalit or woman president or india needs a able president with some vision for the country?

Is it true that politicians are afraid of making a tough person as a constitutional head of India, so they go for people who can always act as their rubber stamp?

Why after 60 years of independence we r still trapped in web of caste, religion?

Modern history witnessed two world war's. These wars were fought for land and power. Since every major country is nuclear power now so, i hope there can't be any war over land as no one can afford a nuclear catastrophe . So, what can be the scene from where third world war will start.
As it is said "water is life" so this third and ultimate war for humanity will start over trivial fights for life which mean water.Green house effect is fastly causing global warming which in result will increase the melting of glaciers . This in turn will increase water flow in rivers for some years but after this rivers will start drying up. Right now many countries are sharing water through several international treaties like indo pak water treaty. Countries in the upstream will start violating the treaty to supply water to their own population. This will create a situation where countries in downstream will be forced to start a war. Even inside a country there will be civil war between states for water. Unlike other world war's,This war won't have a two sides.It will be a collection of several inter country and intra country wars..

This is just a rough idea of my story on third world war.

I was going through a news on Child labour. It's about 12 year old orphaned child Birendra who is working b'coz he has to take care of himself and his four-year-old sister. He used to work in a cloth shop where he was getting Rs 1000 which was sufficient for him. Now, due to Child Labour Law, his employer is not willing to keep him. He got a second job but with less pay i.e. Rs 500 only. This news stirred a storm inside my brain and i started asking many question to myself. for which I m not able to get a suitable answer till now. My questions are about very basics of human existence.

Is constitution above the human life?

Do we have heartless laws?

Birendra is also a citizen of india then why he is not getting his right to earn and live?

Is it possible to apply same law to everyone as there can't be same circumstances with every person?

Who is offender in this case: Birendra, his present employer or our government?

Who will be responsible if Birendra will loose this job also and will be forced to die of hunger with his 4 year old sister?

Think on this as we may get several instances like this where laws are made and enforced to deny us the basic right to live .

Last few days were really hectic for me as I was busy in CISCON06, a national level technical conference organized by Deptt of ICE, MIT, manipal. I like to work in these kind of events where one can learn to manage people in better manner. This is my last year in college and after that I will not get any opportunity to work for these kind of events. Thus I tried to give my best to make it a huge success. During the conference, I realized that if you are working under someone then never assume anything by yourself and always ask for the clear instruction. Especially, if someone above you is in a commanding position. Generally ,in the college events students organize everything on there own so, the person under whom you are working is also a student. In this case one can argue with that person but if the that person is a faculty member then you just can't argue with him/her. Thus, it is better to have clear guidelines about the work to be done, so that, on later stages , if something goes wrong no one can blame you.


"This simply means if you are powerless then never take bigger responsibility. Higher responsibility means more power and vice versa"..

In Gita Lord Krishna tells the mysteries of this life. One of the most famous verse(shloak) which emphasies on the importance of work is




In Hindi it means

It's literal meaning is"You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty."

I have heard this verse many times in my life. Generally people in India refer to this in their daily life. But at the same time they never try to understand the essence of this verse. They leave evrything to lord and believe that everything will be fine. In this verse Lord Krishna tells that one should believe in the value of work. If the efforts are geniune then the result will be fine. At the same time there are many unseen factors which we can't predict so, sometimes it happens that our best effort are not sufficient enough to give the best result. The work shouldn't be done with the expectation with best result always and due to poor outcome never ever stop giving your best to your work.