Privately held companies have more freedom to innovate than public companies as they are not beholden to shareholders who demand constant growth.
As technologies such as Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain become increasingly integrated in the auditing industry, auditors will need to adjust their focus in order to thrive in this rapidly changing environment.
For any industry reshaped by rapid technological growth, new business models must be accompanied by the development of complementary skillsets among its employees. The world of auditing is no different; as ever more advanced service capabilities raise client expectations, there is an increasing recognition among accountants that – as the saying goes – “what got you here won’t get you there”. Indeed, auditors in the financial services industry have traditionally prioritised skills such as accounting, risk management, IT and data analytics when looking to land their desired job. Training in these areas will remain essential for some time to come; however, an oft-overlooked set of “soft skills” is becoming ever more relevant in today’s age of digital transformation. These abilities emphasise the human side of business interaction, where interpersonal communication leads to understanding in a way that technology alone cannot yet replicate. With technology now playing a massive role in the finance industry along with other business sectors, auditors now have greater technical abilities at their fingertips than ever before. In such an environment, where computers can outperform even the best and most experienced auditors at fundamental tasks, the traditional role of the auditor can now expand into new areas. It is therefore worth exploring the challenges and opportunities of this new ecosystem, with an eye toward the particular skills that auditors can develop in order to differentiate themselves from their fellow auditors – as well as their silicon-based assistants.
Advances in data analytics are allowing today’s auditors to gain greater insights into their clients’ organisational structure and provide them with higher levels of assurance at similar or even lower costs than ever before.
As one of the world’s purest examples of information collection, organisation, and processing, auditing is set up to benefit from the latest advances in software in a way that few other sectors can match. Data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation – these and other related innovations are a perfect fit for the complex demands of the auditing world. Many of the challenges facing the current generation of auditors involve the close reading of contracts, identification and analysis of transactions, reconciliation of accounts, checks for anomalies and inconsistencies, and generation of reports. With the benefit of new technology, each of these requirements can now be met faster and at a higher level of accuracy than ever before.
For the average large Thai organisation included in the study, just $0.7 million was lost through the direct result of attacks. Indirect effects accounted for $6.7 million of the lost money, while induced losses accounted for the remaining $5.3 million.
Every business, every day, generates an incredible amount of data. The easiest and cheapest way to store all this information is to adopt the ‘landfill’ model of keeping everything and moving as much of it as possible to the cloud. But we find that many are doing this without even trying to keep track of what they have.