Create a Help Desk for Data

Companies need to create a help desk for data, similar to the help desk they created for hardware, software, application, network, and user problems.

Can you imagine if companies didn’t have a computer help desk and each department had figure out their own computer issues? If each department had to find, load, configure, and troubleshoot their own hardware and software?

But isn’t that how most companies operate when it comes to data and data projects?

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The Analytic Staircase for Auditors

Building a successful audit analytics program is like climbing a staircase.

The staircase is a set of steps that consist of several items having increasing levels of maturity.

The staircase steps not only help you build your program, but enable you to measure that maturity.

As you view the staircase graphic, mentally insert the word “analytics” before each step.

No Analytics, No Audit Department

If YOUR audit department doesn’t embrace data, analytics, and automation eventually, your audit department will NOT exist.

No data, no analytics. No analytics, no automation. Eventually, no audit department.

Editor Note: This post really applies to all departments in a company, but mainly I’m addressing auditors, but you might want to read between the business lines….

By embrace, I don’t mean have one or two auditors working on this. I mean the entire department.

Before you cite all the regulatory requirements mandating the existence of an audit department in companies, having an audit department in name only won’t cut it.

Having an inept audit department will not be acceptable to regulators, and it shouldn’t be acceptable to company management either. Or Audit Committees!

Companies need skilled and efficient auditors that can do the heavy lifting, and this need will only increase.