Audit is a routine activity in any organization, while last month I was taking the audit on behalf of my department, just casually the head of the audit team asked me that what I think about audits, and are they necessarily required, I replied to him, but at the same time it spurred lots of thoughts in me, and I wrote something about it, and thought I could even publish it here
In the dictionary the term “audit” means inspection or examination. It’s a practice of various institutions and organizations to conduct audits within their structure. A culture of conducting audits boosts the efficiency of an organization as it’s human tendency to become attentive in the sight of an inspection or examination, though in professional world, audits doesn’t necessarily mean like said above, but undeniably they inspire the audit receiving team to enhance their standards of performance.
Audits are important in any industry, be it manufacturing, IT, media, banking or construction. But I believe in industries like banking and construction, they serve the most important purpose.Banking is all about finance of hefty and astronomical sums.While giving loans or issuing credit cards banks have to be very careful, and that’s mainly because of quality of their agents. The agents themselves don’t bother to follow the rules fixed by the bank; I receive many phone calls and am assured a new credit card, even without address verification and other formalities. Even the staff of the bank in their eagerness to sanction loans, become very soft towards the guidelines of their bank. Then in an industry like construction where a large workforce of unskilled and less educated workmen is involved in constructing the product, I feel it must be very hard to maintain quality standards. If audits are not performed timely in these industries, then for sure things will go out of control.
Audits may be internal or external, and both are equally important and effective. Frequency of the audits in the form of a calendar should be fixed and followed religiously to maintain the effectiveness of the same. The selection of the auditors is also a key point and only very experienced professionals who understand the gravity or triviality of all micro and macro level activities and processes, should be assigned the job.
There comes a feeling that audit’s are not required as everybody in an organization knows his or her responsibility and people are mature and sincere enough to perform their responsibility flawlessly. But looking at the other side of coin, though people in any organization are capable enough but there are lots of micro level activities, which may not be executed up to the mark. A systematic schedule of audits ensures that all micro level activities like timely updation of all the records, all the documentation, etc are performed in the best possible way and also all the standards followed by the organization are met up.
The audits can be made more successful if the Auditees take it as an opportunity to enhance their quality of work and not as an inspection imposed on them. The most important part of the whole audit process is the corrective action being taken by the audit receiving team. If a team receives an audit in true spirits and is enthusiastic about implementing the corrective actions, then only the very purpose behind conducting audits can be deemed accomplished.
