Audit Committees Losing Sleep?
Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
Interesting news today from Financial Week, which reports on a survey out from KPMG and the National Association of Corporate Directors ranking risk management as the biggest concern for audit committees — surpassing even accounting as a priority. Whoa. Seems like audit committees’ confidence in their own abilities to identify and assess business risks in the company aren’t what they should be — likely, the survey says, because of the serious write-down climate we’re in these days.
The survey also says (will we ever tire of saying “Survey says?” Not likely.) this underscores the importance of SOX. Now, far be it from us to downplay the importance and impact of SOX. SOX and Audit Trail go way back. But aren’t massive write-downs a risk on their own? Reason enough to bring cross-functional teams together to identify risks and decide on and implement controls to manage those, so that business can continue with mitigated risks? Sure, it’s good for meeting SOX requirements, but it’s also seriously good for business, which is why we’re all here, isn’t it?
Speaking of sleepless nights, we don’t pretend to know how well internal audit chiefs are sleeping these days, but a new survey out from our very good friends at Ernst & Young says that data privacy isn’t a top concern for them. (So if they’re losing sleep, it’s probably over something else — like biz continuity or disaster recovery.) We’ve been talking internally for a bit (and you’ll hear more on it soon, promise) about the importance of data privacy, which many companies are taking seriously. Given the risks to employees, customers, and reputation that poor privacy controls can unleash, we’re a little surprised the internal audit folks aren’t focusing on it more deeply.
Elsewhere in the news, Treasury Secretary Paulson is calling for a stronger process to address bank failures, in order to maintain market stability and resiliency in the event of a large financial firm failure. We are all hears about what various folks think will help keep us out of future messes like this. Wouldn’t it be so cool if the presumptive Presidential nominees stopped by to weigh in on that?
A blogger can dream . . .
Tags: audit committees, internal auditors, risk management, data privacy