The volatile economy is boosting the rigor that the internal audit function applies to GRC activities.

Bob Hirth, executive vice president of global internal audit at Protiviti, says the impact is evident in “a real shift” in the internal auditor’s view of risk and “how it’s managed compared to years past.”

Hirth’s assessment comes from his analysis of a new survey of global internal auditors. The participants, members of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), rate IFRS, XBRL, IT risk, and information security as their top priorities for the rest of the year.

Protiviti’s annual (for the past three years) “Internal Audit Capabilities and Needs Survey” contains 100 questions in three categories: general technical knowledge, audit process knowledge, and personal skills and capabilities.

Other findings include:

• Enterprise risk management, most pressing for hospitality and life sciences companies, was among the top five “need to improve” areas in the general technical knowledge category.

• For the first time, four fraud-related activities ranked among the key areas that needed the most improvement, with healthcare organizations expressing the most concern.

• When it comes to personal skills, dealing with confrontation — an area added to the 2009 survey — ranked as the second highest “need to improve” area, following the development of board of directors and audit committee relationships. ###