IT Audit / Assessments - More Than Compliance

Too often IT "Audits" are limited to security and compliance issues, covering software licensing, compliance with HIPPA, Sarbenes-Oxley, DOD, and security issues.

As such, an IT "Audit" becomes almost a necessary nusiance rather than an opportunity to "assess" your entire IT capability and position the company as the market leader.

So what should a full IT "assessment" include? In addition to the typical software licensing, compliance, and security checks, you need to have your IT capabilities strategically assessed in the following 5 areas:

1) Ability to achieve the organization's goals and objectives - not only provide real-time metrics, but deliver the needed systems to meet sales goals and operational efficiences.

2) Measure the capacity and capability of both hardware and software infrastructure to deliver both present and future needs of the organization.

3) Disaster Recovery - your organization is far more likely to be brought down by a disaster than a hacker or virus. Of course security is a top concern in any audit / assessment, but the dangers and preventitive measures are fairly well known. Disasters are usually unexpected and unknown in damage yet just as crippling to organization systems.

4) IT Staffing and Planning - too often, IT is handled as a "technical black box" with all decisions such as outsourcing, cloud based SAAS, necessary skill sets, etc being made by ingrained, biased department staff. Even if they are doing a seemingly good job, you don't know the opportunity cost of different approaches.

5) Intelligent Systems - IT system intelligence will increasingly separate the winning organizations vs. the losers. Where is your organization on the relative and competitive scale?

Solid, comprehensive IT Audits / Assessments are not an option, or a necessary compliance nusiance - rather they are proactive blueprints to winning.

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