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The Davies Report Archives

GRC – The Great Risk Con revisited

“Use caution with Forrester Waves and Gartner Magic Quadrants.” Leading GRC Analyst.  In 2008 I wrote a piece for Risk Management Magazine called GRC – The Great Risk Con.  The article went on to make a number of controversial comments ranging from an inference which suggested that anyone who uses the GRC term may not know what they’re […]

Could internal audit have prevented the News Corp Scandal?

Viewpoint Could the internal audit team at News Corp have identified and clamped down on the illegal activities of their journalists? Todd Davies doesn’t think so. The News of the World scandal is causing ripple effects around the world, with commentators in Australia and abroad beginning to ask questions about News Corp’s corporate governance. They […]

Strategic Risk Management?

Opinion I’ve been deleting the word strategic from a lot of documents lately. And it’s assisting immensely. You see I’ve got this idea that the more times a person uses the word strategic, the more likely it is that the person is puffing or bluffing. In the risk and assurance space using the word strategic […]

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Why internal audit practice always lags and GRC snakeoil salesmen are alive and well  I turned 40 recently. And my work is making me feel old.  You see I’ve become that guy who says things like “back in the mid-90’s when we were rolling out CSA, we used to produce these great assurance maps…” or […]

Time to Mandate Internal Audit?

Comment The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has been campaigning for regulatory change in Australia for more than 10 years. Much of what they’ve been saying has fallen on deaf ears.  Australia has one of the highest public exposures to listed shares as a result of mandatory superannuation. While prudent fund managers should be underweight […]

Reform required to ASX’s Principle 7?

Comment As the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Corporate Governance Council starts its regular review of the Principles and Recommendations, the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has fired an early salvo on the need for change. Although we’ve learned a lot from the global financial crisis and the destruction of value, the reality is that when […]

All Gone to Custard – Another take on Assurance Maps

A recent survey by the Economic Intelligence Unit indicated that 67% of companies believed they had overlapping coverage in two or more risk functions. 50% suggested there were gaps in coverage between their risk functions, and 62% believed they could get better coverage with less spend. Assurance mapping can be a useful tool for getting […]