Further delivering on its commitment to provide software solutions enabling companies to improve Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), MetricStream, Inc., the market leader in enterprise-wide GRC and Quality Management solutions, today announced the launch of a new release of its industry-leading Internal Audit Management solution.
In response to the financial crisis of 2008, there is a widespread call for greater board (BoD) accountability and transparency in regard to which risks the board accepts and how the risks are being managed. The role of the Chief Audit Executive (CAE) and the Internal Audit function is emerging as pivotal as it supports the BoD and its committees by independently assessing the effectiveness of companies’ system of internal controls and compliance with statutory, legal and regulatory requirements.
Internal Auditors also need to closely collaborate with internal and external legal advisors, risk control units and operational teams on investigations into major control issues and areas of improvement.
Faced with this transformation, organizations are looking for approaches, tools and technologies to streamline and strengthen the Internal Audit function enabling it to deliver more strategic value while lowering its costs of operation. MetricStream’s powerful new Internal Audit Management solution builds the foundation for seamless integration of geographically dispersed business units and optimized planning, execution and coordination of audit processes to assure effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of financial reporting and compliance with laws and regulations.
Developed in close collaboration with existing MetricStream customers, the solution has been delivered to a number of clients including some of the leading energy, oil & gas corporations, premier financial institutions including a large stock exchange and a central bank and several Fortune 500 clients in diverse industries like airlines, retail, life sciences and healthcare. The high degree of adaptability provided by the solution enables customer to manage not just financial audits but also audits, assessments and inspections related to operations, quality, safety, suppliers and IT illustrating the evolving role of internal auditors.
“In complex organizational structures with intricate procedures that drive efficacy of operations, reliability of financial reporting, deterring and investigating fraud, safeguarding assets and compliance with laws and regulations has resulted in a need for increased levels of adaptability, collaboration and visibility when implementing Internal Audit systems,” said Gaurav Kapoor, CFO and General Manager at MetricStream. “Many organizations rely on first-generation stand-alone point solutions or paper-based and manual processes for executing a variety of audit processes. As these companies overhaul their infrastructure to adopt an integrated, top-down risk-based approach, implementing a robust and versatile Internal Audit system is instrumental in ensuring that the organization upholds world-class standards of corporate governance and risk management while driving continuous improvement in business performance. This release of the MetricStream Internal Audit solution will position customers for long-term sustainable success.”
The release is packed with enhanced collaboration capabilities to improve visibility within the audit team as well as between auditors and auditees leading to quicker response times for improved efficiencies. The application release also includes enhanced management reporting capabilities with a rich set of dashboards and reports. The powerful reporting engine aggregates and rolls up information across multiple dimensions such as risk profiles, areas of compliance, business units and business processes with the ability to drilldown to view data at granular levels.
“The MetricStream Enterprise Compliance Platform architecture has enabled us to design this release of the Internal Audit Management application around the customers’ need to enable systematic risk-based audit processes with consistent evaluation of controls across all dimension of the enterprise. It addresses challenges such as multi-layered and intersecting organization structures, compliance with country specific laws and industry regulations (such as FERC, NERC, Basel II, FDA, FAA, etc.) and the need for conducting audits at remote sites globally,” said Vidya Phalke, CTO at MetricStream. ”The solution allows modeling of the control environment around industry-standard best practices and frameworks while providing the flexibility to enable customers to deploy and adapt the solution specifically to their individual business and technology needs.”
About MetricStream
MetricStream is a market leader in Enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Solutions for global corporations. MetricStream solutions are used by leading corporations such as Pfizer, Philips, NASDAQ, Sandisk, BP, Entergy, Subway, Fairchild Semiconductor, Hitachi and TaylorMade-Adidas Golf in diverse industries such as Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, Automotive, Food, High Tech Manufacturing, Energy and Financial Services to manage their quality processes, regulatory and industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance initiatives, as well as by over a million compliance professionals worldwide via the www.complianceonline.com portal. MetricStream is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at www.metricstream.com.
