IT Internal Audit Planning for 2025

As IT audit teams are actively planning for 2025, it is important for them to understand the organizational IT strategy and align the plan to the strategic direction of the company. With so much change, such as the continued evolution of the cloud landscape, artificial intelligence (AI), increased levels of technical debt and increased focus from regulators on IT matters, organizations must be able to articulate how their plan is aligned to the risks of the enterprise.

With this understanding, a comprehensive and high-impact technology audit plan should be developed that aligns to company-wide growth strategies and associated risk factors to drive value throughout the entire organization. The use of company-wide strategic objectives, as well as external factors (e.g. new technologies, changes in regulations) and alignment with the enterprise risk team to build the plan can also foster alignment between Internal Audit and business units within the organization (enterprise risk management (ERM) and information security, legal, etc.), enhancing the organization's ability to mitigate risks, and facilitating the creation of value-driven initiatives that drive growth and deliver benefits across the enterprise.

Once key audits have been identified, it is important to be thoughtful about how each is scoped and approached to ensure the plan focuses on the risk objectives previously identified and potential value to the organization. In this publication, we will highlight what we see across the marketplace to help you drive value throughout your plan, as well as ‘hot’ topics to consider as you develop your 2025 audit plan.

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By building a robust and thoughtful 2025 technology audit plan, you can enhance Internal Audit’s role as a strategic partner with business leaders as the organization continues to evolve and adapt. Fostering alignment between Internal Audit and the senior leadership teams enhances the organization's ability to mitigate risks and facilitates the creation of value-driven initiatives that drive growth and deliver benefits across the board. To build this plan, key considerations to keep in mind include:

• Reviewing and adjusting top risks to your company on a periodic basis.
• Aligning audit objectives with company-wide growth strategies, whilst considering external risk factors to drive value throughout the entire organization.
• Ensuring your Internal Audit team has the right training and skillsets to identify and deliver the identified audits, adding value to the business.

Finally, aligning the audit plan to the risk agenda for your organization is crucial. It requires a deep understanding of your organizational IT strategy and a careful assessment of the core activities that are essential for your success.

By identifying these key areas, you can develop a technology audit plan that is tailored to your organization's specific needs and risk profile. This targeted approach ensures that the audit plan aligns with your company-wide growth strategies and addresses the most pressing risks and challenges you may face.

By selecting the right topics, you can drive value throughout your entire organization and lay the foundation for a successful future in the rapidly evolving technological landscape.

How KPMG can help

Given how closely KPMG works with many of the world’s leading organizations, we have unique insights based on industry expertise that help us understand what a business must get right to deliver on its objectives.

An audit plan should never be constrained by the resources you have available, the breadth of services that we provide allow us to bring subject matter expertise to any audit topic which can bring not just credibility to your Internal Audit function but can also bring value to the organization.

 Based on the risk within your organization and the demand for audits, we can help you to scale your resource model to be able to effectively develop and deliver your plan.