by Sikandar Usmani | Nov 20, 2024 | Internal Audit
Indeed, using Data Analytics is a fanciful proposition, given its look and feel-good reporting showcasing patterns, relationships and trends. Indeed, using Data Analytics allows for an improved reliance on the reporting owing to greater credibility. Indeed, using Data...
by Sikandar Usmani | Nov 11, 2024 | Internal Audit
Being at a store witnessing an inventory count, would you ask the client leading the exercise which items to count or ask about their preference of items that should be counted? If your answer to any of these two options is affirmative, you certainly don’t know what...
by Sikandar Usmani | Oct 31, 2024 | Risk Management
What do international standards, several best practices and a multitude of frameworks over risk management have in common? Certainly, their aim and objectives. But a little less obvious is their approach. They intend for us to be systematic, disciplined, meticulous,...
by Sikandar Usmani | Oct 21, 2024 | Governance
While scrolling down LinkedIn posts, there was this interesting update that caught my attention for all the wrong reasons. While I misread it initially to mean something more offensive about the relationship between a leader and an organization, its correct read...
by Sikandar Usmani | Oct 10, 2024 | GRC
Ever wondered, what a high performing Internal Audit (IA) team would look like, or more appropriately what are its characteristics? Not sure if there could be a high performing IA team? Or if there’s a performance by IA through which it could be gauged? Well yes,...
by Sikandar Usmani | Oct 1, 2024 | GRC
Could audits be void of judgments and assumptions? To answer that let’s ask another question; could entity’s design of Governance, Risk Management and Control Systems be void of their judgements, estimations and assumptions? Risk, being the effect of uncertainty on...
by Sikandar Usmani | Sep 20, 2024 | GRC
Unfortunately, that’s true…. even in 21st century audits and auditors could be ‘productive’ enough to be called a pain in the a**. And it’s not because that’s a perception that precedes us, it’s also because it’s a reputation that follows us when we work our a** off...
by Sikandar Usmani | Sep 12, 2024 | GRC
Is there a theoretical difference between the components of external and internal audit risks or is that difference attributable to how we understand risk as external auditor and as internal auditor? What is the audit risk made up of firstly? Conceptually, both the...
by Sikandar Usmani | Aug 30, 2024 | Governance
In a perfect world, it shouldn’t matter. Management concurrence shouldn’t be needed, and it should not be for the internal auditors to procure it. How about external auditors? Do they need it or even vie for it? Certainly not, because management understands that it’s...
by Sikandar Usmani | Aug 20, 2024 | GRC
It’s not as simple as the words suggest it to mean and certainly it has something for both the auditor and the auditee. But self-auditing has strings attached to it that extend well beyond auditing yourself (auditors and auditee), in terms of its implications. In the...
