Technology Audits: A Keystone Requirement for Businesses
As companies become more and more reliant on technology to run their business operations, the importance of regular technology audits cannot be overstated. When done right, technology audits not only ensure the safety, efficiency, and health of a company’s IT infrastructure; they also provide an opportunity to think about upgrading the existing technological framework. This blog explores the myriad ways in which technology audits prove to be a central function of today’s business, as well as that of the future.
Evolution and Scope of Technology Audits:
Gone are the days when technology audits were only about making sure that IT systems are compliant with internal policies and external regulations. The burgeoning need to adopt growth boosters in the form of emerging technologies in all areas of business has vastly increased the scope of technology audits.
Today, these audits look at data governance, digital transformation strategies, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and so on, in addition to the basic health check of IT systems. When Tech Mahindra, for instance, goes into a technology audit with our customers, we don’t just sign off on the technical aspects of their IT systems; we perform a deep dive into how well their IT infrastructure aligns with their business goals, how compliant are their systems with regulatory requirements, what best practices are currently in place, and how our customer can use their existing and new, emerging technologies to Scale at Speed toward their growth objectives.
Compliance and Risk Mitigation
According to a 2020 McKinsey survey, “71% of consumers would stop doing business with a company if it mishandled their sensitive data.” This figure could be higher now since awareness of data privacy is far more prevalent among consumers. As a result, data privacy and protection laws globally have become more stringent. Perhaps the most important objective for technology audits is navigating these regulatory complexities and ensuring the highest standards of data protection.
We cover a dynamic range of factors in this regard: from access controls and classification mechanisms to data loss prevention policies and cyber resilience. These audits help to not only highlight gaps, risks, and non-compliance in the existing data protection measures, but also suggest ways to fix them.
Enhancing Cybersecurity
There is a constant arms race between hackers and IT cyber resilience. Any slip ups on an organization’s part, in the form of negligence, lack of awareness, and system gaps can significantly increase opportunities for cyber threats.
Technology audits promote a culture of cybersecurity awareness in the organization. They emphasize the importance of employee training, while also educating them on ways to mitigate risks and prevent cyber attacks. In addition, these audits help proactively identify vulnerabilities in IT systems to minimize data beaches. Security controls and contingency plans are also reviewed and graded during these assessments, along with recommendations on how to strengthen the defenses.
Driving Digital Transformation
Digital transformation has become a norm for organizations today – a vital aspect of doing business, as opposed to the strategic advantage that it was in the years before. Consequently, the rate of digital adoption across verticals has also increased.
Technology audits provide a systematic approach to analyzing a company’s current digital capabilities, identifying major opportunities for improvement, and a path to achieve that end state. For companies that are yet to embark on their transformation journeys, a well-executed technology audit helps in assessing system readiness, identifying use cases across business functions, and setting benchmarks for performance. The focus of these audits is not just the adoption of new technology, but also ensuring that implementations are geared toward business goals.
Optimizing Technology Investments
Technology audits have an overarching role of informing decision makers about their IT investments. These audits provide a thorough evaluation of their existing IT infrastructure, their efficiency, RoI, and utilization. Outdated and underutilized systems are brought to light during these audits to help identify areas that reduce organizational efficiency overall.
There may be inefficient processes that need the investment in terms of automation and cloud migration. There could also be other areas incurring a lot of IT cost due to redundancies, gaps in alignment, or inefficient use. All these factors are considered holistically in a technology audit to help optimize IT spend for the organization.
What Does the Future of Technology Audits Look Like?
Process automation is a welcome trend observed in technology audits. Automated audits help identify trends and patterns quickly, especially for large and complex infrastructures, using big data and analytics. AI-based algorithms take this a step further to not only identify current issues, but also predict future threats and vulnerabilities. This provides the company the ability to proactively pivot into more efficient, cost-optimized, and resilient IT processes and systems.
Conclusion
The role of technology audits today is more than just ensuring compliance – it has evolved into a tool for data-driven decision making. These audits help companies prioritize and focus on high-risk areas, while also providing a clear roadmap for the future of their IT organization. Moreover, the audits ensure that the investments made by companies is both efficiently utilized and in line with the growth ambitions of the business. Technology audits have the potential to shape the future of businesses today.
References:
Anant, Venkat; Donchak, Lisa; Kaplan, James; Soller, Henning (2020). The consumer-data opportunity and the privacy imperative. McKinsey.Com Insights. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/risk-and-resilience/our-insights/the-consumer-data-opportunity-and-the-privacy-imperative
