Governance & internal controls

The audit environment is shifting—from a focus on past performance to future growth. In addition to the audit and reporting compliance issues faced by all commercial enterprises, internal control risks exist—in unique combinations—in virtually every business situation. Sarbanes-Oxley, for example, has transformed accounting practices of 85% of American businesses, but the regulations must also be understood, and followed, by all Europeans companies listed in the US as well. Higher levels of responsibilities for boards, expanded roles for audit committees, restrictions on services assigned to auditing firms, and new certification standards are only a few of the complex changes that Sarbanes has created to protect investors. What’s more, with every new scandal, scrutiny increases and regulations are adjusted regarding the role of boards and C-level executives.

If this is your situation

• Your own internal auditors are under performing and you need help training them in best practice internal audit techniques
• You need to supplement your in-house internal audit with specialist skills
• Your internal audit function has insufficient resource to cover the geographical spread of your organisation
• You need assurance that your processes and controls effectively manage your business risks
• In your organisation you consider internal audit to be a non-core activity so you want to find an external provider
• You need to assess the effectiveness of your risk management, internal audit and corporate governance procedures

What PwC can do for you

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) excels at helping businesses identify, prevent, and mitigate risk involved in internal controls. Our professionals have worked in every country and industry with long experience evaluating current risk programs, identifying weaknesses, and designing improvements that work. We
can help you to redefine risk parameters, ensure privacy compliance, participate appropriately in deployment decisions, and meet the new challenges of customer management and contract coordination specific to this medium Rather than simply fine-tuning audit programs, with strategies such as integrated governance and a balanced scorecard approach, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ specialists can work with you to design strategies that work, and enhance value.