Upskilling the next-generation of risk, compliance and audit officers

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in regards to the pandemic and business, it’s that digital transformation is unstoppable.

Organizations have invested in suites of data analytics, automation and collaboration tools to support their hybrid workforce and market demand. But with technological shifts come challenges that risk management leaders can’t ignore, including cybersecurity, degradation of process, impact on control or compliance activities, customer fraud and data privacy.

Risk, compliance and internal audit teams need to adapt and become digitally fit in order to work faster, and more intelligently, to manage these risks and provide more value to their organizations. However, the answer to automation and digitization isn’t always about outsourcing or third-party apps. It’s about arming risk, compliance and internal audit teams with the skills needed to build their own solutions—rapidly and at scale.

Embrace automation and digitization in the risk function

Forty-six percent of chief risk officers see digital transformation as a top opportunity to upskill their existing workforce on emerging digital technologies. Blending digital skills like data analytics, robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) into current teams will allow practitioners to confidently manage change and make decisions about their function’s digital strategy—while also supporting the organization’s broader digital transformation.

Automating certain activities simplifies practitioners’ daily lives, leaving more time for advanced auditing, risk and compliance work. Just think about what an audit approach could look like through the lens of data analytics: 

• Risk assessments can be redesigned to be data-driven. 

• Analytics can be leveraged to continuously monitor controls.

• Real-time dashboards and reporting can enable your organization to act on higher risk areas instantly.

This level of opportunity cuts across all industries, too, including financial services, healthcare, pharma, manufacturing, consumer products and more.

For example, in financial services, digital skills are critical for responding to regulatory issues and exploring ways to use data and technology to develop sustainable solutions to address issues through action plans and other remediation activities.

Across health industries, payers, providers and pharmaceutical companies use digital skills as a core component for responding to regulatory and compliance issues as well as ensuring high quality patient care and quality standards. Digitally-enabled compliance programs bring a clearer line of sight into evolving regulations so leaders can anticipate and plan for risk—and seize opportunities.

Carve a path for digital transformation in risk management with upskilling

Upskilling teaches employees how to build RPA tools to complete routine tasks such as data retrieval, compliance monitoring and audit testing and leverage advanced AI tools to detect and prevent failures in key risk areas.

Though not every risk, compliance or internal audit practitioner will want, or need, to be an RPA specialist or data scientist, they will likely benefit from using intelligent tools for daily activities. It’s important for practitioners to understand digital technologies so they can rethink, imagine their more digitally enabled function and know what insights can be drawn.

With upskilling, you can identify employees with the aptitude and adjacent skills to become automation drivers and complementary subject matter specialists so the entire function walks the path of digital transformation.

Accelerate speed to value in upskilling your risk and compliance professionals

Teaching employees how to build their own automated data analytics tools may seem like a daunting task. An end-to-end upskilling platform, like ProEdge, designed for digital business transformation and citizen-led innovation, can close skill gaps and enable people to innovate at the speed of your organization’s growth.

ProEdge is designed to help risk, compliance and internal audit professionals advance their upskilling journeys by using customized learning pathways and showcasing their new skills by earning ProEdge credentials. Earning ProEdge credentials requires individuals to demonstrate skills proficiency by completing capstone projects. For risk, compliance and internal audit professionals, this would involve building a risk assessment dashboard, which requires learners to build an executive-view dashboard that analyzes risk levels and insights to inform decision-making. 

Vetted and approved employee-built automations and AI models can then be shared with broader functional areas through a sharing platform. Giving access to the projects created by peers means that people can put those assets to work right away, accelerating upskilling ROI.

Upskilling the next generation of risk, compliance and internal audit professionals is not about becoming coding professionals. It’s about understanding the implications of technologies—the why behind the code—so they can validate data and prioritize decisions—giving your organization the edge it needs to more smartly manage risks.