Turning disruption into advantage: Internal audit's role in organizational resilience

Key Takeaways

• Resilience requires an enterprise-wide approach. Internal audit can help connect governance, operations, technology, and financial preparedness to assess whether the organization can respond effectively to interconnected risks.
• Internal audit should shift from reactive recovery to proactive adaptability. Rather than focusing solely on restoring operations after disruption, audit teams should evaluate how effectively the organization anticipates, absorbs, adapts to, and learns from change.
• The IIA framework provides a practical blueprint for resilience assurance. Its three pillars focus on strategic governance, dynamic risk management and accountability, and resilient control processes, provides auditors with a more standardized way to evaluate organizational resilience.
• Resilience testing should adapt to the audit scenario. Audit teams can apply the requirements through planned engagements, targeted testing when emerging risks surface mid-audit, or assessments requested after significant disruptions.
• AI is both a resilience enabler and a source of new risk. AI can help identify emerging risks and accelerate crisis response, but audit teams must also consider explainability, human oversight, and evolving compliance risks.