Audit Response & Remediation

It's What We Do

Teamwork makes the audit work. Yup, nailed it!

When it comes to audit response and remediation, effective collaboration among stakeholders is paramount. Of course, all the key players must be master problem solvers; but I tend to view that as table stakes. Reading my colleague Terri Schulze 's article on Strategic Communication a couple weeks ago made me think about what really drives a group of savvy “remediators” to success. Yes, their skills are foundational but I think what sets the successful team apart is just that…they’re a team. They succeed by communicating information efficiently and effectively through streamlined processes and tools to all relevant stakeholders, not just each other. They become force multipliers by reaching below the surface to draw out comprehensive root causes. And they achieve long-term success that will outlast them for years to come.

Streamlined processes and tools: Post-audit, streamlined processes and tools are worth their weight in gold. They’re crucial in maintaining accountability, coordination, and smooth execution. It's the same principle as the age-old maxim, “It’s not just what you say, but how you say it.” Or, adapted to the audit realm, it’s not sufficient to simply track and report the right datapoints and the “who/what/when/where/why” information of your remediation plan. It’s equally critical that you do so in a manner that is sustainable and usable by everyone who needs it – whether that’s up, down, across, inside, or outside your organization. Like "they" say, “Just because you said it, doesn’t mean you communicated it.”

Comprehensive Reach: No single person can cover the full breadth of findings (NFRs) and remediation plans (CAPs) at sufficient depth on their own. Time and again we’ve all seen the audit hero try to knock out all the CAPs only to find that they’ve just scratched the surface and squandered precious time. Now, contrast that with the proven success of well-crafted Tiger Teams. What’s the difference? Easy, it’s TEAM - Together Everyone Audit-remediates More…obviously!

If you’ve been through an audit, you know that surface-level issue resolution is always insufficient, but fully developed teams let us drill below the surface with precise action plans that target the underlying causes identified in audit findings. Together, a team can truly address root issues and create an environment of long-term sustainability and resilience. And with that kind of environment, it’s so much simpler to forecast (and prevent) future issues down the road. (Spoiler alert, we do that through internal controls and risk management…stay tuned for next week’s article!)

Lasting Success: Proactive organizations understand the value that such an environment brings to mission objectives, to budgets, to morale…across the board. They also know that it takes the right team to connect the environment to the execution. All the risk assessments and control designs in the world won’t do an ounce of good if they can’t customize and scale to an organization’s critical systems and processes. But when the right team connects organizational know-how to audit compliance, that’s when the magic happens! Suddenly, your organization isn’t responding to audit findings on the back-heel, it’s proactively preventing problems before they can escalate. (Cue the great Louis Armstrong jam “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”)

There’s really no coincidence that I chose to work where I do. As Iberians, our commitment to teamwork is part of our daily rhythm. It extends beyond resolving audit findings to everything we touch. We’re always striving to transform the challenged-filled present into a more resilient future marked by efficient processes and tech-enabled tools that facilitate a comprehensive reach beyond the superficial to achieve lasting success.

If you’re looking for the right team to drive your organization forward in its audit journey, or perhaps you resonate with our mindset and would love to join a team of like-minded professionals, feel free to drop us a message. Team Iberia has never met a stranger!

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By: Ali Siddiqui, CPA , Iberia Advisory Senior Manager

This is the fifth in Iberia Advisory 's It's What We Do series, where Iberians share their perspectives on what we do best. Next Thursday, we’ll go one step deeper into post-audit resilience by focusing on Internal Control & Enterprise Risk Management with Iberia's founders Ryan Waguespack, CPA and Erica Mehm .