The primary objective of internal auditing against the ISO standard is to regularly review critical business processes to ensure that the system conforms to the planned arrangement and organisational requirement and that the system is effectively implemented and maintained.

What is an internal audit?

Internal audit, a type of audit, is a systematic, independent & documented process to obtain & objectively evaluate evidence of compliance with the policies, procedures & requirement of the management system.

Internal audit helps the management to evaluate if the internal control within the business is maintained and effective. Internal controls can be either process controls or system controls that are implemented as risk mitigation actions to address the risks identified within that process and system. By maintaining and improving the effectiveness of internal controls, business will be able to significantly improve process efficiency, meet regulatory requirement, monitor performance, evaluate risks and increase system reliability and integrity.

Some of the key benefits of internal audits

• Improves the management of internal control within the organisation
• Identifies gaps, non-conformances and areas for improvement that can be used in internal strategic planning.
• Enable the business to become process-dependent rather than person-dependent
• Identifies inefficiencies in operational activities and provides action plan/recommendation to improve the overall efficacy of procedures.
• Serves as an Early Warning System, enabling deficiencies to be identified and remediated on a timely basis (i.e. before external, regulatory or compliance audits)
• Increases accountability within the organisation.
• Satisfies the requirement of ISO management system standard

Internal auditing is linked to the risk management process of the organisation, and internal audits are conducted based on the risk levels of their business activity. The business should ensure competent internal auditor are assigned to conduct the audit. A process for internal audit should be placed to schedule, plan, conduct audit and report audit findings to the management.

The established of an internal audit function need not be a costly investment. The business does not need to hire a suite of internal auditors and build a separate business unit for auditing. The internal audit function can be easily outsourced to expert consulting firms who will conduct the internal audit as per your requirements. Outsourcing the internal audit function prevents the management to take the deep dive and enables them to obtain more value for the business.

Leadership in the business would be well served by having an internal audit function assisting it with its risk assessment process and ensuring that the responsibility for maintaining a system of internal controls has been fulfilled.

Anitech consulting has an expert team of certified internal auditors that can help you with your internal audit function.

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Many research studies have proved that standards give a boost to the economies and business. Due to the standards an estimated $ 81 billion has been put into the economy while in UK they are responsible for annual $ 8.2 billion growth in Gross Domestic Product or GDP.

One key finding is that standards can be utilized to streamline the internal processes of an organization. For example by decreasing the time required to execute specific activities in various business processes, decreasing the level of waste, reducing the procurement costs and enhancing productivity. It has been found out that the standards contribution to the gross profit of companies ranges between 0.15 % and 5 % of annual sales revenue.

As the business is better organized by adopting standards, it helps the business to innovate easily. Case studies have shown that organizations are better able to expand their offerings by introducing and innovating in new products in their distribution network. The standards also help in mitigation of risks associated with introducing new products. Furthermore the standards help in the organization with adding more suppliers to their network.

Standards have been used by organizations as the basis for new product development, entering new domestic and international markets and supporting the market demand of the products. The standards are helpful even in creating new markets. In some extreme cases, companies have far exceeded their profit margins from the figures given above to the level of 33% of their annual revenue. This also helped the companies in positioning themselves as market leaders in their field over a period of time.

WikaBeton, an Indonesian conglomerate active in construction, real estate and trading businesses, used ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and various technical quality standards. They developed a unified management system allowing for high quality operations which resulted in increased customer confidence.

The major benefits of using standards allowed the organization to improve its selection and evaluation of suppliers, save resources in research and development, optimize the transfer of information through unified specifications and standard information capture, high quality supplies, optimization of production process and obtain benefits in sales negotiations.

NTUC Fairprice is the largest supermarket chain in Singapore with a market share of over 50%. It uses Cold Chain standards for milk and frozen meat as well as Bar code standard and ISO 14001 and well as HACCP.

The benefits to NTUC of the standards were in doubling the volume of goods handled while having the same number of employees, improving process efficiency, extending the supplier network, raising and maintaining the product level of quality and increasing the level of customer loyalty and confidence.

The benefits were translated into annual saving of approximately USD 3.2 million and also helped nurture a culture of continuous improvement in the organization.

Gefor is a Colombian multinational company which is active in the plastics and synthetic fibers sector in the petrochemical industry. It uses over 200 standards, both national and international ones. The benefits to it were in continual improvement in operations and production, sales and marketing by creating market access allowing it to expand rapidly in the domestic market, and accessing international markets by meeting market entry requirements and conditionsin the design of new products, quality inspections of supplies. The economic benefits of the standards is USD 8 051 919 which is 77% of the company revenues. The company has introduces ISO 14001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001which have helped in streamlining its processes and increasing its quality and reliability.

Danper, founded in 1994, is one of the largest agro-exporter in Peru dealing mainly in Asparagus and Artichokes. Its business comprises of preserved goods (77% of sales), fresh products (21 % of sales) and frozen products (2% of sales). It is certified to ISO 14001 and ISO 14001 and National Peruvian Standards as well as HACCP, OHSAS 18001 and SA 8000 and finally Global GAP and US GAP.

It has benefited by USD 648 158 annually from the standards which amounts to 0.73 % of sales revenue. Using standards has allowed Danper to continuously improve its skills and implement an efficient and reliable production process, manage the cold chain in a highly efficient way and ensuring product quality requirements are met in overseas markets and demonstrate through its certifications to its overseas customers, its ability to produce and deliver safe and high quality products and to qualify as a supplier for them.

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