The Scary New Outlook for Internal Audit
Can the profession seize its rightful role in risk management, governance and compliance? Maybe, but it’ll take vision and guts. Do you have what it takes in the post-meltdown world of the new normal?
by Rick Telberg
In the aftermath of the global financial meltdown and the surge of new corporate interest in enterprise-wide risk management, do internal auditors face risks of their own in getting left behind?
Maybe so, according to some prominent thought leaders in the profession.
After surveying more than 2,000 executives across 50 regions of the globe, researchers at PricewaterhouseCoopers report that internal auditors are being challenged “to remain relevant and meet stakeholder demands” in ways like never before.
What’s required today, according to Brian Brown, PwC principal and Internal Audit Advisory Services leader, is a whole new, and somewhat unnerving, concept of the internal auditor, a new vision Brown and his colleagues call “Internal Audit 2.0.” More than simply checking accounts, internal auditors need to adopt a new way of thinking about their job that goes beyond audit as we’ve known it and embraces the fast-developing body of knowledge in governance, risk and compliance. Or else, Brown says, they run the risk of becoming marginalized and obsolete as new risk-management professionals take over.