Covid-19: Adapting to the “new normal” Covid-19: Adapting to the “new normal” Covid-19: Adapting to the “new normal”

Throughout the Covid-19 outbreak, entities have been fighting to maintain efficiency, enabling remote working (often requiring enhanced controls) with a main focus on external threats. The UAE is one of the first countries to respond and adapt swiftly to the Covid-19 outbreak, moving its economy smoothly in to a recovery phase. This has put greater pressure on Internal Audit (IA) functions to cope with the rapid change in operations and provide assurance during an entity’s recovery phase and set new expectations for the future. We have identified three growing risk factors as well as some key IA planning considerations in the new normal that should be included in IA risk assessment and audit planning.

In this publication, we discuss potential changes required to the internal audit approach in the new normal as well as possible broader implications to IA governance, competences and systems.