CHAPTER 3Marketing the Internal Audit Department
CREATING YOUR AUDIT BRAND
When you work in an internal audit department, it does not matter what types of audits you execute, where you are located, the tenure of the leadership team and staff, how long your department has been established at the company, or how exceptional you believe your street credibility is with the business unit partners. You still need to market your audit department.
The fundamental question that every audit department should be asking themselves is, Do our clients know what we do and why we do it? Each time I facilitate training on marketing the audit department, I ask this very question, and the response is consistent. Not everyone in the company understands what audit's objectives really are, and most business partners just seem to tolerate the inconvenience of interruption to their operations when audit comes to town to review the business operations.
Trust me on this point: Audit departments do not want to engage with their business partners in the situation where the business personnel do not understand what audit does, why audit is in their operation, or how this particular business unit was selected for an audit in the first place. When the business unit lacks a fundamental understanding of the internal audit process, the audit and relationship starts off in a very strained position. Now, complicate this situation with a remote audit in which the auditors and business partners will not be meeting ...
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