View from the institute: Transform – prepare for the future

As we emerge from one period of intense disruption and find ourselves in the midst of the next, the internal audit profession – and the organisations internal auditors work for – must ask ourselves some tough questions about where we are now and what we can offer businesses and shareholders. While we should congratulate ourselves about what we have achieved over the past couple of years, it is more important that we focus on where we need to get to if we wish to retain our relevance and increase our value further.

This is why it was exciting to hear Anthony Pugliese, president of IIA Global, outline his ambitions for the development of the profession worldwide when he visited the UK in May. During his visit, he attended a Leaders’ Forum dinner and attended Council as well as outlining his six high level goals for the profession at a Local Authority Chief Audit Network (LACAN) Forum.

Anthony’s strategic plan for the future of the profession consists of six goals, supported by a comprehensive set of objectives, strategies, tactics and measurement tools. The goals he outlined are as follows:

• Reimagining/transforming the IIA Global operating model to ensure it can deliver in a new age. This will include overhauling the IT infrastructure to make it modern and fit for the future.

• Increasing membership – working towards a future in which all internal auditors want to become IIA members with a focus on what the IIA offers and re-examining membership models.

• Reskilling to promote competency and learning – looking beyond training to develop new ways to help members upskill and become competent working with technology and able to tackle emerging internal audit areas such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) and cyber risk.

• Educating the public and policy makers to ensure the profession is represented and has sufficient presence at government level so that it is involved when laws and regulations are being developed and its views are heard by law-makers and regulators.

• Enhancing the image and brand of the profession – improving understanding of the role of internal audit and why people should want to pursue it as a career.

• Preparing the profession for the future – including a “radical” rethink of the Professional Standards to make them capable of addressing the most difficult things that members wrestle with every day, including new Standards for ESG and for cyber.

These are inspiring goals and the Chartered IIA will look forward to supporting their development in every way we can. Many are areas that we are already, of course, working on and exploring at the Chartered IIA and reflect the themes that we discuss regularly in so much of what we do.

I am particularly interested in the pressing issue of how we maintain a robust pipeline of great new internal auditors in the future. We can all contribute to ensuring that people embarking on their careers realise what internal audit has to offer – where else will they receive a thorough grounding in all parts of the organisation?

Dermot Byrne, our deputy president, addressed many of these themes at our Irish Conference at the end of May. He pointed to myriad risks our organisations face today, first as a consequence of the pandemic, and now exacerbated and developed further by the war in Ukraine and soaring energy prices. Many of these risks are interrelated and can be hard to predict even in the short-term. Add to these the global risks around talent management and climate change and the uncertainty around the post-Brexit arrangements on the Northern Ireland border and the challenges can seem daunting.

However, Dermot pointed out, difficult times create new opportunities for internal audit to demonstrate the value we can add. The profession must therefore “embrace change and transform ourselves for this decade and beyond” and “we must raise the bar still further” if we are to be indispensable to the organisations we serve, he told delegates.

We know that many internal audit teams are already doing fantastic work. At the end of June we hosted our Leaders’ Summit and announced the winners of our annual Audit & Risk Awards at a dinner – and it was wonderful to see so many high-performing individuals and teams gathered together in person to celebrate their achievements.

However, the ominous storm clouds on every horizon mean that past performance is no guarantee of future security. Even the most successful, innovative and mature internal audit teams must constantly evolve and change to ensure they are prepared for the next challenge and can answer ever-increasing demands for support and assurance from their stakeholders (ie, management and, in particular, their audit committee).

Growing demand for our services is good – it indicates that we are seen as a valuable source of information, advice and an independent, trustworthy viewpoint. However, it also means we have to stay on top of an increasingly wide range of topics and constantly develop our own understanding of what emerging risks could mean for our organisation. Technology can help, but it is also part of the problem. Nothing is straightforward.

This is why all internal auditors need to plug into a wide range of information sources and focus their limited time effectively. Information can be gained in many different ways today, but the Chartered IIA will always be exploring the best ways to share experiences and disseminate the information you need to cope with the scope and complexity of evolving risks.

In September, we will publish the findings of our Risk in Focus 2023 research highlighting the key areas that we – and you – believe will be the most important in the coming year. On 18-19 October, we will host our annual conference, our biggest event with speakers and sessions covering a host of risks and challenges and offering a range of views and predictions. This also provides a great opportunity to meet others wrestling with the same concerns and find out how they are dealing with them or to discuss tactics.

Further conferences in Wales and in Scotland will follow in November and December. Meanwhile, we have new thought-leadership papers and research publications on fraud risk and benchmarking coming out and we will continue to host speakers at our specialist forums as well as providing training courses on an array of topics, including new ones on geopolitical and behavioural risk.

The profession cannot stand still, we must evolve quickly and become ever more agile and responsive and continue to achieve more without ever sacrificing integrity or standards. But you are not alone. Internal audit is stronger as a profession than it can ever be as individual teams. The IIA – both at Global and Chartered Institute level – is also transforming and will support you on your journeys in every way it can. 

This article was first published in July 2022.