Category: Research Digest

Internal audit trends

Report: Companies Increasing Internal Audit Budgets, Staff

A new survey finds that internal audit departments are generally increasing their budgets and adding more staff. According to the survey, conducted by the Institute of Internal Audit’s Internal Audit Foundation, 36 percent of internal audit departments said they had increased their budget last year, compared to 13 percent who Read More

Rolling Risk Assessments

Risk 2034: A New Survey of the Top Risks in 10 Years

A new survey is taking a look into the future to consider what the top risks may look like in 2034. The survey, conducted by Protiviti, finds that cybersecurity and risks from emerging technology are likely to still be at the center of risk management efforts in the next decade. Read More

Internal audit focus areas for 2020

New Report Considers the Future of Internal Audit

A new study finds that internal audit teams may be dedicating too few resources to some of the top risks that organizations face and that the misalignment is likely to continue into the future. The report, 2024 Focus on the Future, conducted by AuditBoard, a provider of cloud-based platforms for Read More

Report: Compliance Departments Facing Belt Tightening, Smaller Staffs

Compliance leaders are facing increased pressure to make the most of existing resources due to economic challenges and increased workload and complexity, according to a new report. The study, conducted by research and consulting firm Gartner, identifies three crucial compliance function trends playing out this year: tighter budgets, changing labor Read More

Compliance

Report: Companies Still Working to Automate SOX Compliance Work

A new report finds that companies still haven’t completely mastered SOX compliance. It finds that more than half reported an increase in time spent on SOX, even as they work to add automation to the process. The fourteenth annual Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Compliance Survey, conducted by global consulting firm Protiviti, finds Read More

Biggest Banking fraud penalties

The Most Expensive Financial Compliance Failures of the Last Decade

Just as in any other industry, the financial industry has its fair share of questionable behavior, and then some. For this reason, an alphabet soup of regulatory oversight — and accompanying fines for non-compliance, violations, and even fraud — exist to keep financial institutions in line. Regulatory bodies like the Read More

Auditing organizational culture

Four-Fifths of Companies Neglect to Audit Corporate Culture

According to a new report, internal audit leaders say that organizational culture is among the biggest contributors to wrongdoing at their entities, as well as the biggest defense to keeping it from happening. It also finds, however, that companies are still not making it a priority to assess the organizational Read More

Auditing whistleblower hotlines

Report: Nearly 40 Percent of Companies Don’t Audit Whistleblower Hotlines

A new benchmark report closely examines what is and isn’t working with whistleblower hotline programs, especially as they concern fraud detection. Among the most troubling findings: 25 percent of organizations still don’t have a whistleblower program and among those that do, only 39 percent bother to audit them. The report, Read More

Introverted internal audit leaders

Introverted vs. Extroverted Internal Audit Leaders: Which One Are You?

A few weeks ago, I met with a self-described “introverted” business leader. This business leader confided to me that introverted individuals have a harder time climbing the corporate ladder. The individual went further in claiming that recent research shows that it is worst for women, as introverted women are seen Read More