It Compliance And Controls: Best Practices for Implementation

Chapter 5. A Regulated Environment

DEFINITION OF INTERNAL CONTROL

Internal Control Advantage

Beyond the competitive advantages of technology and the importance of the safeguards to ensure that these systems operate consistently to deliver service and support revenue, there exist legal necessities that encourage the same type of IT internal controls. The next listing highlights advantages of having an IT enterprise control environment:

• Consistent language throughout the entire enterprise facilitates clearer communications, better success rate for projects, and complete metrics.

• Standardization of technology, infrastructure, and software enables businesses by:

  • Supporting rapid expansion of an organization, as scaling is accomplished simply by reproduction and not reinvention.

  • Lowering total cost of ownership (TCO) by reducing the number of specialists within the organization.

  • Increasing the effectiveness of the help desk support center by focusing on a single technology platform.

  • Lowering licensing and maintenance costs, because of discounts from bulk purchases from vendors of the IT enterprise controls.

  • Enabling simpler integration with clients, partners, and acquired entities due to stricter due diligence requirements; also establishes a process for integrating with those not adhering to a centralized approach.

• Greater visibility, success, and savings in projects.

• Increased productivity of end users resulting from less downtime, patching/maintenance of virus outbreaks, and timeliness of processing ...