Audit Committees Set Higher Goals

A study of corporate audit committees finds that members increasingly expect their companies' internal auditors to focus on operational, strategic and business risks.

PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 63 percent of the audit committee members it surveyed for its report consider operational risk to be of significant importance to audit committees. Only 52 percent of the respondents consider providing assurance on the effectiveness of a company's risk management processes to be of significant importance to audit committees.

Nearly 60 percent of respondents have a risk assessment process in place that includes annual updates and seeks stakeholder input on key risks facing the organization.

Many internal audit functions, however, still focus extensively on financial compliance risks. Eighty-seven percent of Fortune 500 respondents and 79 percent of other respondents spend less than 20 percent of their resources on non-financial compliance audits. For nearly 80 percent of total respondents, average audit cycle time is three months or more per audit.