With the expansion of economic activities, there are more and more business projects of modern enterprise groups, and the economic scale is getting bigger and bigger, which greatly improves the management difficulty of enterprise groups. Internal audit is an independent and objective confirmation and consultation activity, which helps organizations achieve their goals by using systematic and standardized methods, including risk management, control and governance. In order to ensure the healthy development of enterprise groups, it has become an inevitable trend to carry out sustained and long-term internal audit strategic planning.
First, China's enterprise group internal audit problems
At present, China's enterprise groups have basically set up internal audit functional departments, equipped with more professional internal auditors. However, we must admit that in the absence of specific laws and regulations, the understanding of internal audit within enterprise groups is not extensive and in-depth, and problems are prone to occur in audit work.
(A lack of audit awareness, auditors have a vague understanding of internal audit work.
The lack of audit consciousness here is relative. Today's enterprise groups have attached great importance to internal audit. However, in the course of work, many enterprise groups cannot accurately locate internal audit. Internal audit is responsible for group management while supervising enterprise management, and pays attention to production rather than internal management improvement. Statistics show that most enterprises have a certain understanding of internal audit strategy now, but less than 20% have really formulated a clear and long-term internal audit strategic plan. This situation greatly restricts the construction of China's internal audit strategic planning system.
(B) The independence of internal audit is weakened and its authority is insufficient.
The failure of internal audit of enterprise groups is largely due to the lack of authority and independence of their own institutions. Although most enterprise groups have established corresponding internal audit institutions, due to the constraints of other departments or work, internal audit often needs to combine the opinions of other departments to draw conclusions. In practical work, it is difficult to guarantee the authority and confirm the impartiality of the conclusions of internal audit institutions, which leads to the weakening of audit responsibility and has a negative impact on risk management.
Second, the key factors of constructing the strategic planning system of internal audit of enterprise group companies
Enterprise group companies carry out business activities in the market economy environment. Therefore, the economic activities of enterprise group companies will inevitably be affected by the market economy environment, thus affecting the direction of the construction of the internal audit strategic planning system of enterprise groups. Under the principal-agent mechanism, the strategic decision of enterprise groups has a fundamental impact on the internal audit strategy of enterprises. Therefore, the strategic planning of the group and the will of the group decision-makers have also become the key factors to determine the construction of the internal audit strategic planning system.
(A) with the overall strategic planning of enterprise groups as the core
As a management tool, the purpose and direction of internal audit must also conform to the overall strategic direction. Therefore, in the process of constructing the strategic planning system of internal audit of enterprise groups, the strategic direction of internal audit should be formulated based on the overall development goal of enterprise groups. Only in this way can the compatibility of the internal audit system be guaranteed and the internal audit function can really contribute to the development of enterprises.
(B) give full consideration to changes in the economic environment
Enterprise group companies operating under market economy conditions are bound to be affected by the external economic environment. With the development of the world economy, the momentum of economic globalization is getting stronger and stronger, the internationalization of enterprises and the relationship between industries are getting closer and closer, and enterprise groups are increasingly influenced by the market in the development process. Therefore, in the process of constructing the strategic planning system of internal audit of enterprise groups, enterprise groups should fully consider the external market economic environment, closely link the internal audit strategy with the market, and improve the market adaptability.
(C) according to their own development cycle to build a stage of development
Every company will go through different development cycles, and its strength and scale will go through the process of development and change. In the life cycle theory, the life cycle of an enterprise includes four stages: germination, development, maturity and decline, which have different characteristics. Take the mature period as an example. Maturity is the most powerful period for enterprise groups. During this period, the company reached the largest scale, with many business projects and very complicated economic activities. Therefore, at this stage, the internal audit of enterprise groups should help enterprises avoid risks as much as possible, avoid losses caused by internal management costs and ensure the sustainable profitability of enterprises. Of course, the arrival of maturity inevitably indicates the emergence of recession. During this period, the internal audit should make full follow-up strategic planning, avoid giving up profitable business projects in the later development of enterprise groups, ensure the sustainable development of enterprise groups and prevent the interests of enterprise groups from being damaged.
(d) Fully study the wishes of management and set a flexible range of management wishes.
The internal audit mechanism must adapt to the company's decision-making direction in order to exert its maximum efficiency. In the market environment, different enterprise groups have different internal organizational structures, and there will be great differences in decision-making and management methods, which also determines the development direction of enterprise groups. Therefore, in the process of constructing the strategic planning system of internal audit of enterprise groups, the wishes of management should be fully considered. In addition, the decision-making level of enterprises may also change. Therefore, in the process of constructing the strategic planning system of internal audit, enterprise groups should give full consideration to the changes of decision-makers and leave some flexibility to avoid the impact of changes in decision-makers or decisions on the adaptability of internal audit and improve the adaptability of internal audit.
(e) Establish a monitoring mechanism for the implementation of the strategy.
After defining the internal audit strategic planning, enterprise groups should strengthen the supervision and control of the implementation process, ensure that each step is consistent with the predetermined goal, realize the evaluation and analysis of the internal audit strategic construction, and realize multi-directional and three-dimensional control, so as to ensure the rational allocation of internal resources and promote the improvement of the internal audit strategic planning system of enterprise groups.