Red Flagged: Internal Audit Scores Poorly in
Digital Transformation Efforts
Internal audit leaders should develop new skills to stay relevant
Chief audit executives (CAEs) and internal audit leaders report their
next-generation competency levels in three vital areas – governance, methodology
and enabling technology – to be remarkably low, a Protiviti survey reveals.
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The survey also identified that the majority of
internal audit functions are at risk of losing relevance for not modernizing and
transforming the audit process, against the increasing demands of today’s
stakeholders
Nearly 780 Chief Audit Executives (CAEs) and internal audit leaders were
surveyed across industries to uncover the pressing priorities for internal audit
functions when it comes to next-generation auditing skills.
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Audit leaders should step up their innovation and transformation
initiatives
In what should be a red flag for chief audit executives and audit committees,
enabling technology received some of the lowest competency-level
self-assessments in the entire survey: (rated on a 1 to 5 scale with 5 being
highest)
“We continue to advocate for the embrace of a next-generation internal audit
mindset and the adoption of the governance, methodology and enabling technology
competencies that will position internal audit functions to best support their
organizations as they strive to transform amid this pandemic and in the years to
come,” said
Brian Christensen, executive VP, global internal audit, Protiviti.
• Robotic process automation (RPA) – 2.1
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning – 2.0
• Process mining – 2.2
• Advanced analytics – 2.6
One telling example of the need for internal audit leaders to step up their
innovation and transformation initiatives is that only 10 percent of those
surveyed are undertaking process mining – a form of analytics that uses
transactional data captured by enterprise systems to analyze and visualize how
processes are actually being performed – in their internal audit function, and a
surprising 41 percent of respondents reported they have no plans to adopt this
enabling technology at all.
Notably, internal audit’s exploration and adoption of enabling technology
also lags that of other key business functions such as finance.
“Our survey confirms the awareness among internal audit professionals of
how far behind their function is in terms of the core competencies required to
provide value in the digital age,” added Christensen.
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