Internal Audit Quality

Chapter 16Knowledge Management and Marketing

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.

—Peter Drucker

Internal auditing is a knowledge-based activity. It relies on internal auditors being proficient in identifying and analyzing data to gain a depth of knowledge about processes and activities. The quality of internal auditing increases directly with the degree to which this knowledge can be shared and reused. Knowledge only has value when it is managed appropriately.

There is a direct link between knowledge management and marketing. Marketing requires knowledge of the needs and expectations of key stakeholders, and an ability to promote potential solutions for meeting these expectations. Marketing an internal audit function helps the organization to enhance its knowledge of internal auditing and the services that internal audit can provide.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge has become the most important factor in economic life. It is the chief ingredient of what we buy and sell. It is the raw ingredient with which we work. Intellectual capital—not natural resources, machinery, or even financial capital—has become the one indispensable asset of corporations.

Tom Stewart, Editor of Fortune

Effectively managing knowledge in a knowledge-focused environment such as internal audit can add significant value to an organization. Internal audit functions are privy to a vast amount of organizational information ...