Internal Audit Emerging Risks for 2021 and Beyond – Part 4

This session is part four in our series on Internal Audit Focus and Emerging Risks for 2021 and Beyond. The world has changed. 2020 was an unprecedented year for all professions. Internal auditors were faced with a tremendous impact to their audit plans causing refocus and realignment of not just projects but resources. As a profession, internal auditors have traditionally focused on past events or as some would say, taking the look in the rear-view mirror. Most financial or accounting professionals can look at previous year data and tell management where past mistakes were made.

With the evolving landscape, risks and economy that have been spurred on by the pandemic of 2021, internal auditors must look to stretch their skills to areas that are most valued by their organizations. Today’s insight may well be tomorrow’s hindsight.

Part one of the series evaluated three core categories that impact the “Hot Topic” areas for internal auditors to focus on in the future. These included:

• Heightened Focus on Organizational Resilience
• Elevated Macro Environment Uncertainty
• Humanization vs. Dehumanization of the Workforce

After reviewing these areas, we will then link them to “Hot Spot” topics as identified by the Gartner group that internal audit should be attuned to in 2021 and years forward. In session one we delved into the topics of IT Governance and Data Governance. Within Part Two of the series, we examined:

• Cyber Vulnerabilities
• Business Continuity Disaster Recovery
• Talent Resilience
• Corporate Social Responsibility

Within Part Three of the series, we examined:

• Third-Party management
• Supply Chain management
• Data and Analytics