BusinessDay, a South African business news website, published a recent article referencing an E&Y study involving “more than 100 industry analysts from more than 20 disciplines”:
Organisations need to break out of the compliance cocoon and evolve into a fully fledged leadership role that delivers real value to the business. In the current economic climate, the biggest risk for most companies is not a failure to meet compliance requirements, but a failure to meet strategic targets.
The study also assessed last year’s top 10 business risks. In it, the analysts ranked the aftershocks of the credit crunch and the deepening global recession as the most important business risks, displacing regulation and compliance from the top spot.
Still more evidence that the Internal Audit profession demands an expanding skill set and well-rounded people with experience in more varied aspects of business. Auditors are going to have to continue to push themselves outside of their comfort zone in order to provide the greater value that shareholders require of the function.
How does your IA department stack up?