Article

Digital Controls

Organizations are exploring the introduction and use of digital technologies in their businesses

This affects them at two levels. Firstly, the use of new digital technologies exposes these organizations to emerging risks in their business models and operations. Secondly, the new digital technologies enable new ways to prevent, manage, detect and correct risk exposures in their operations. Our Digital Controls practice helps clients to address these challenges through our advisory services, digital assets and digital technology enablement.

This affects them at two levels.

Firstly, the use of new digital technologies exposes these organizations to emerging risks in their business models and operations.

Secondly, the new digital technologies enable new ways to prevent, manage, detect and correct risk exposures in their operations. Our Digital Controls practice helps clients to address these challenges through our advisory services, digital assets and digital technology enablement.

Explore Accounting & Internal Controls services

  • IT & Specialized Assurance: We can assist you in gaining assurance over your IT infrastructure, ERPs, applications, data systems and extended enterprise—building trust between technology and business controls.
  • Internal Audit: Through innovative methods, advanced analytics, and labs, we can help you transform your internal audit function. We can help you deliver assurance and advise on critical business issues, anticipating risks.
  • Controllership Accounting & Reporting: We can elevate your accounting operations, workforce and infrastructure. From technical and operational accounting to enhanced reporting, analytics, and enterprise resource planning (ERP), we can support your finance transformation. 
  • Treasury: Our treasury solutions enable teams to have critical conversations. We can support you across executive transitions, financial distress, regulatory compliance, M&A, and technology programs.

Digital Controls: Organizations recognize that new digital technologies such as AI, machine learning, robotics, cloud, Internet of Things and big data analytics provide opportunities to manage, detect and control risks in innovative ways which significantly increases effectiveness and efficiency. In many cases, digital technologies allow the application of control techniques which were previously infeasible. Our Digital Controls framework provides comprehensive guidance on how to employ new digital technologies to modernize the lines of defense. We help clients to apply digital technologies to revamp the aspects of governance, people and processes in the internal control framework.

Digital Risk: When organizations "go digital," whether in terms of embarking on transformative digital business models, or digital transformation of their operations, they are exposed to new risks or new forms of existing risks. We use our Digital Risk framework to help clients understand, govern and address potential trouble spots that leading-edge technologies introduce. In digital transformation initiatives we safeguard our clients’ interests with respect to digital risk exposures, and free them to focus their attention on the achievement of their strategic digital objectives in a safe manner.

AI control: AI and machine learning are increasingly used to assist and improve business decision-making. It is therefore essential that the insights garnered or decisions made by AI algorithms are fair, ethical, safe and explainable, especially when they affect safety and other important aspects of human life. Our Trustworthy AI framework is used by Deloitte professionals to investigate the AI models developed by our clients and provide confidence that the algorithms contained in them perform as expected.

Analytics/Data: AI algorithms are used to create innovative solutions for long standing risk issues (e.g. early warning of emerging risks through big data analytics, credit lending models to assess credit worthiness of under-banked people in developing countries, combating digital fraud or modelling climate risk). These innovative uses are helping to improve our society and create a better world. Our Deloitte professionals have created multiple innovative uses of AI algorithms and deploy them at clients to solve real world risk problems faced by businesses.
DataStrata
DataStrata is planned to be an end-to-end data framework designed to help organizations build a data foundation with enough integrity to realize the full power of data while managing the risks. Through a single integrated framework, we help organizations drive accountability through data management and enablement with strategic support in data risk, regulatory compliance, cyber security, culture and training, vendor management and technology. DataStrata provides the blueprints, architects, tools and processes for your organization to realize the full potential of your data.

Is your digital risk approach fit for the digital age?

Effective digital transformation requires more than just implementation of technology. By applying nine risk lenses explore the organisation–wide considerations that help to build digital confidence. What lens do you need?

New digital ecosystems, business and service models
New business and service models use partners and suppliers in different ways.
Rapid mobilisation can blur lines of visibility across the different parts of your business, creating a new digital eco-system and an increasingly complex threat landscape.
Questions to ask yourself

  • Do you know who you are doing business with?
  • How quickly can controls be reported on across your supply chain
  • How many of your suppliers use cloud to host your systems?
  • Do you know who has your customer data right now?

Experiences and engagement
In our digital world news, good or bad, travels further and faster.

You need to transform how you engage with your stakeholders - partners, customers, employees, and regulators – in support of digital transformation, to ensure you are delivering positive outcomes for all.
Questions to ask yourself

  • Is your adoption of digital technology excluding anyone?
  • Is your tech investment achieving measurable and positive outcomes for your stakeholders?

Ambitions and aspirations
To realise your strategic ambitions you need to be confident to make the right decisions and quickly.
The ability to articulate and quantify opportunities and threats in a digital world is challenging. Market forces fluctuate at pace and require an agile and connected approach.
Questions to ask yourself

  • Do you want to move faster, but feel held back by too much governance?
  • Can your ability to deliver digital transformation safely and securely keep pace with your ambitions?

Changing external environment
You need to meet customer demands. Keep the regulators happy. And stay ahead of the competition.
But the risks associated with digital transformation are leading to increased scrutiny that is often out of sync with the progression of innovation – making it difficult for you to align these priorities.
Questions to ask yourself

  • How quickly can you respond to rapid changes in the market, such as new entrants with different business models?
  • Do you have adequate oversight of your global regulatory exposure
  • How close are you to your regulators?

Culture and leadership
In the digital era, success belongs to organisations that not only understand digital, but also live and breathe it.
Your leaders need to be digitally fluent, and quick to adapt to new and familiar digital risks. They need to navigate digital evolution with confidence.
You need to inspire the right organisational mind-set to enable new ways of working and a culture that embraces digital to the core.
Questions to ask yourself

  • Is your board digitally savvy?
  • Is your organisational culture keeping pace with business change
  • Does your business have a digital-first mindset at all levels?

Branding
A brand can be resilient for decades, but destroyed in minutes.
Your digital presence, brand and reputation, have never been more important, as you use it to expand or recast your strategic ambitions.
Questions to ask yourself

  • What does your brand say about you and your digital aspirations
  • How resilient is your brand in the face of a crisis?
  • What are your customers and employees saying about your business (including supply chain partners) online?

Organisation and workforce
Your digital success rests on building a workforce that is fit for the future.
Across your organisation you need to ingrain digital fluency without compromising on security. You need a workforce that is agile and able to keep pace with the speed of digital change.
Your risk and controls teams have a new role to play in this digital world. They must be at the heart of the digital transformation agenda, equipped and empowered to drive organisational value.
Questions to ask yourself

  • Are your Risk and Control teams holding you back?
  • Does your workforce understand the digital world, and their responsibilities?
  • Is your workforce agile, secure and resilient?

Enterprise operations
Investment in back-end enterprise operations, processes, and new technologies is essential to realise your strategic goals.
But, your risk management must keep pace with a more dynamic and automated operation, and more often than not, this is an after-thought.
Questions to ask yourself

  • Is risk management embedded from the start of digital transformation?
  • Have you struck the right balance between after event assurance, and before the event monitoring?

Platform, data and infrastructure
The systems, technology and data that digitally represent your prospects, customers, partners, and suppliers is changing rapidly.
But as you digitally evolve your legacy infrastructure can hold you back.
Questions to ask yourself

  • How do you monitor your technical control debt?
  • Is enough spent on securing new technology?
  • Are you confident about where your data is and who is accessing it?
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