The great French military and political leader, Charles de Gaulle, is said to have observed that “generals are always fighting the last war.” The reasoning behind this often-used quote is that military threats are always changing and evolving, and there is a temptation to assume that the next threat will look just like the last one. My fear is that internal auditors are tempted to fall into this trap. However, focusing audit coverage on “yesterday’s risks” can result in being ill-prepared when new calamities appear.
In the late 1990s, the corporate sector became enamored with the “value-added” concept of measuring the worth of corporate functions.…