Internal Audit

In our co-sourcing arrangements, we work in partnership with our clients, taking a variety of roles and responsibilities, but overall reporting to the head of Internal Audit.

Related to any aspect of Internal Audit including methodology and tools.

With companies facing increasing regulatory and competitive pressures in today’s business environment, managing risk has climbed up in the ranks of the executive agenda. The internal control environment of companies is an area to which more and more executives are turning towards to obtain assurance, and to keep an eye on business processes, policies and results.

At PwC we have the expertise to support our clients in transforming risk and complexity to their advantage, and utilise internal controls in a strategic manner driven by capabilities and performance. Internal controls optimisation is key in improving the alignment of the control environment to the risks that the company faces, and thereby improve the company’s ability to effectively and efficiently manage these risks.

The rapidly changing business environment and risk landscape drive Boards and Audit Committees to raise their expectations of internal audit, requiring them to deliver more value more efficiently. Heads of internal audit are responding to this challenge by obtaining external quality assessment reviews to improve the quality of their function and its conformity with International Internal Audit ("IIA") Standards, stakeholder expectations and leading practice.

The primary internal audit performance improvement service offered by PwC is an External Quality Assessment (EQA), performed using a proprietary approach and technology known as Profiler™.  Clients typically may require such a service if they desire a perspective on how their internal audit group is performing relative to leading practices and/or professional standards, or at the onset of developing a Strategic Plan.  Areas to be reviewed may encompass the entire spectrum of internal audit strategy and operations or be very specific to a certain area.

Internal audit training can bring your staff up-to-date with the latest internal audit methodology and tools. We can help you enhance the quality of the internal audit work of your organisation by providing customizable, internal audit training designed to meet the needs of today’s internal auditor.

Our IT IA services can better enable your organisation and internal audit function, if applicable, navigate IT challenges, manage organisation - wide risks, and elevate the role of IA. Our IT IA services allow the stakeholders of your organisation to meet their responsibilities and accordingly address their concerns of the IT in your organisation.

IT IA services help our clients extend their internal audit oversight and performance addressing IT risks as well as broader organization – wide business risks. We help connect IT and IA to gain a greater understanding of the risks and opportunities that come with today’s systems, applications and other technologies. Our talented practitioners possess the necessary business and technical skills that enable us to deliver assessments in the areas of IT Governance, IT Applications and IT Technical Controls.

You’re not necessarily concerned about how your function is performing and the value it is delivering. However, you feel you could benefit from an external perspective on how your function compares to leading practices and learn from others.

You sense complacency may have set in, stakeholder interaction and reporting are stale and the function is struggling to add value, bring insight and innovate.

There isn’t a common view across the organisation as to how Internal Audit provides assurance over key risks and there is a plethora of assurance providers that aren’t joined up. You need help to achieve consistency and consensus.

You see an opportunity to align and possibly redefine the monitoring and control environments of each line of defence. You can see the benefits such a transformation programme could make to the control environment and operational efficiency but don’t know where to begin to quantify these.