About the report
Risk in Focus helps Heads of Internal Audit to understand how their peers view today’s risk landscape as they prepare their forthcoming audit plans for 2020.
The full report is available here.
This report is also relevant for boards, audit committees, risk managers and other assurance providers. A board briefing is available here.
Methodology
Now in its fourth year, Risk in Focus is a collaborative effort between eight European institutes of internal auditors in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK and Ireland.
We undertook in-depth interviews with 46 Heads of Internal Audit in all of these territories and across all sectors as part of our qualitative research into priority risk areas which are expected to be addressed in audit plans for 2020 and beyond. In addition, we also conducted a quantitative survey that received 528 responses.
Key findings
1. The top three risks currently facing businesses and other organisations in the nine European countries are: cybersecurity (78%), regulatory change (59%) and digitalisation (58%).
2. Cybersecurity (78%) and digitalisation (58%) have both appeared in the top three risks in the last two years – although this year the number citing cybersecurity as a top five risk has increased by 18%, further consolidating its position as the number one risk.