{"id":920,"date":"2020-03-02T14:35:05","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T14:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alminawi.com\/?p=920"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:21:09","slug":"tts-series-e-internal-audit-evaluation-conclusion-techniques-episode-02-benchmarking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/?p=920","title":{"rendered":"SKU.4012_Internal Audit, Evaluation &amp; Conclusion Techniques, Benchmarking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"97\" data-end=\"667\"><strong data-start=\"97\" data-end=\"135\">Introduction to the Tool\/Technique<\/strong><br data-start=\"135\" data-end=\"138\" \/>Benchmarking is a powerful audit technique that compares an organization\u2019s performance metrics to industry standards or peers. It helps auditors identify performance gaps, inefficiencies, or best practices worth adopting. Internal audit uses benchmarking during the evaluation and conclusion phase to provide data-driven insights that go beyond compliance\u2014highlighting opportunities for strategic improvement. Benchmarks can be internal (year-on-year), functional (within the same industry), or best-in-class (across industries).<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"669\" data-end=\"857\"><a href=\"https:\/\/americanpro.org\/?product=sku-4012_internal-audit-evaluation-conclusion-techniques-benchmarking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong data-start=\"669\" data-end=\"726\">Template: SKU.4012_Internal Audit, Evaluation &amp; Conclusion Techniques, Benchmarking<\/strong><\/a><br data-start=\"726\" data-end=\"729\" \/>A good format for benchmarking in audit work is a structured Excel-based <em data-start=\"804\" data-end=\"825\">Benchmarking Matrix<\/em> with the following key columns:<\/p>\n<ul data-start=\"858\" data-end=\"1392\">\n<li data-start=\"858\" data-end=\"935\">\n<p data-start=\"860\" data-end=\"935\"><strong data-start=\"860\" data-end=\"876\">Metric \/ KPI<\/strong>: What is being measured (e.g., cycle time, cost per unit).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"936\" data-end=\"1008\">\n<p data-start=\"938\" data-end=\"1008\"><strong data-start=\"938\" data-end=\"960\">Industry Benchmark<\/strong>: The target or average from peers or standards.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1009\" data-end=\"1065\">\n<p data-start=\"1011\" data-end=\"1065\"><strong data-start=\"1011\" data-end=\"1026\">ACME Actual<\/strong>: The audited company\u2019s current result.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1066\" data-end=\"1121\">\n<p data-start=\"1068\" data-end=\"1121\"><strong data-start=\"1068\" data-end=\"1075\">Gap<\/strong>: The variance between ACME and the benchmark.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1122\" data-end=\"1194\">\n<p data-start=\"1124\" data-end=\"1194\"><strong data-start=\"1124\" data-end=\"1142\">Reason for Gap<\/strong>: Observations or explanations behind the deviation.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1195\" data-end=\"1261\">\n<p data-start=\"1197\" data-end=\"1261\"><strong data-start=\"1197\" data-end=\"1212\">Implication<\/strong>: Risks or inefficiencies resulting from the gap.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1262\" data-end=\"1317\">\n<p data-start=\"1264\" data-end=\"1317\"><strong data-start=\"1264\" data-end=\"1282\">Recommendation<\/strong>: Suggested improvement or control.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1318\" data-end=\"1392\">\n<p data-start=\"1320\" data-end=\"1392\"><strong data-start=\"1320\" data-end=\"1342\">Responsible Person<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1347\" data-end=\"1362\">Target Date<\/strong>: Accountability and timeline.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-start=\"1394\" data-end=\"1798\"><strong data-start=\"1394\" data-end=\"1452\">Application Example at ACME Corp.<\/strong><br data-start=\"1452\" data-end=\"1455\" \/>At ACME Corp., Internal Auditor Auren was tasked by CEO Liora to assess procurement efficiency. Auren consulted benchmarking data from a leading supply chain institute and found that the industry average for procurement cycle time (from requisition to purchase order) was <strong data-start=\"1727\" data-end=\"1738\">10 days<\/strong>. At ACME, the average was <strong data-start=\"1765\" data-end=\"1776\">18 days<\/strong>\u2014a clear inefficiency.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1800\" data-end=\"1848\">Using the benchmarking matrix, Auren documented:<\/p>\n<ul data-start=\"1849\" data-end=\"2174\">\n<li data-start=\"1849\" data-end=\"1894\">\n<p data-start=\"1851\" data-end=\"1894\"><strong data-start=\"1851\" data-end=\"1858\">Gap<\/strong>: +8 days longer than industry norm.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1895\" data-end=\"1963\">\n<p data-start=\"1897\" data-end=\"1963\"><strong data-start=\"1897\" data-end=\"1907\">Reason<\/strong>: Manual approvals, bottlenecks in vendor communication.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1964\" data-end=\"2048\">\n<p data-start=\"1966\" data-end=\"2048\"><strong data-start=\"1966\" data-end=\"1981\">Implication<\/strong>: Project delays, higher holding costs, and vendor dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"2049\" data-end=\"2174\">\n<p data-start=\"2051\" data-end=\"2174\"><strong data-start=\"2051\" data-end=\"2069\">Recommendation<\/strong>: Implement a digital procurement workflow with defined SLAs for vendor response and approval automation.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-start=\"2176\" data-end=\"2435\">Project Manager Aven acknowledged the issue and proposed piloting the new workflow in Q3 2025. Liora approved budget reallocation for automation tools. Through benchmarking, Auren not only identified the issue but influenced tangible process upgrades at ACME.<\/p>\n<p>__________<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/americanpro.org\/?product=sku-4012_internal-audit-evaluation-conclusion-techniques-benchmarking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong data-start=\"669\" data-end=\"726\">Template: SKU.4012_Internal Audit, Evaluation &amp; Conclusion Techniques, Benchmarking<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction to the Tool\/TechniqueBenchmarking is a powerful audit technique that compares an organization\u2019s performance metrics to industry standards or peers. It helps auditors identify performance gaps, inefficiencies, or best practices worth adopting. Internal audit uses benchmarking during the evaluation and conclusion phase to provide data-driven insights that go beyond compliance\u2014highlighting opportunities for strategic improvement. Benchmarks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americanpro"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/SKU.4012-scaled.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3101,"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/3101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.americanpro.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}