Strategic audit planning in 2025: A guide for GRC leaders

The 2024 release of new Global Internal Audit Standards from the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) looks to align internal audit processes with the overarching business purpose.

As noted by Deloitte, this has led to an 82% increase in audit function improvement, but only 14% of organizations say new practices have realized their full potential.

To make the most of internal audits, companies need a strategic approach that centers around compliance but is informed by business priorities. Ready to maximize audit impact? We’ve got you covered with our GRC strategic audit planning guide.

Let’s get started.

What is strategic audit planning?

Internal audits are essential for regulatory compliance and standards certification. For example, standards such as ISO 27001 require an internal audit to identify and remediate issues before external auditors are called in. Traditional audit planning focuses on specific outcomes but largely ignores business context. Strategic audit planning takes a different approach.

Definition

Strategic audit planning identifies high-priority audit areas that align with key business goals. This allows businesses to create audit strategies that serve a dual purpose: ensuring regulatory compliance and enhancing business operations.

But what does this mean in practice?

Consider CMMC 2.0. As noted by the official CMMC guidelines, one key area of compliance is reporting all cyber incidents that affect contractors’ or subcontractors’ ability to do their jobs.

In a traditional audit planning process, this is a yes/no question: Can businesses easily report these issues or not? In a strategic planning approach, companies look deeper to identify the source and resolve the cause of these incidents.

Core purpose

The core purpose of strategic audit planning for governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) teams is to align audit priorities with operational risks and goals.

In effect, it’s a shift from discrete to integrated processes. Typically, audits existed outside of IT and other workflows — their purpose was to check boxes and, as needed, address issues that prevented boxes from being checked.

Strategic audits see the audit process as part of larger business objectives. Instead of a stumbling block, audits become a way to glean critical information and take actions that benefit businesses both immediately and down the line.

For example, an internal NIST audit might identify gaps in bidirectional information flow — a key component required to align with NIST CSF 2.0 Section 5.1. From a compliance standpoint, solving this issue ensures certification. From a business perspective, meanwhile, better communication has knock-on effects for improved security across the board, in turn offering a chance to boost ROI even as companies ensure regulatory compliance.

Why strategic audit planning matters more than ever

According to data from the World Economic Forum (WEF), 72% of survey respondents worldwide say that the number of cyberattacks has risen in the last year. Some of their top concerns include disruption of operations, loss of sensitive information, and financial losses.

As a result, it’s no longer enough for audits to simply satisfy compliance and certification requirements. Now, businesses must consider both the short-term and long-term consequences of sub-optimal defensive frameworks.

But there is more to this — other business challenges further prove the necessity of strategic audit planning:

Regulatory and risk pressures

Both evolving regulatory expectations and changing risk landscapes require a more strategic audit approach.

Consider the rapid rise of privacy legislation such as GDPR, CCPA, and Brazil’s LGPD. While these regulations have similar core rule sets, they are applied and assessed in different ways. For businesses, this creates a challenge: While practices such as robust data encryption and clear consent practices improve general compliance, these practices may not be enough to satisfy specific requirements.

To address this issue, strategic audit planning is key. Companies need to determine where compliance expectations overlap and where targeted evaluations are necessary, such as areas that pose the highest risk to the organization or directly impact strategic priorities.

Changing risks also underscore the need for strategic audits. For example, NIST recently identified a new category of attacks capable of manipulating the behavior of AI systems. If organizations do not address these AI challenges ASAP, they could inadvertently breach compliance expectations and expose their organization to greater risk.

Evolving business needs

Business needs aren’t static. The uptake of solutions such as multi-cloud environments and in-depth analytics tools has created environments that are both powerful and potentially prone to compromise.

As a result, companies need strategic audit planning approaches to help identify undetected or emerging vulnerabilities that may put personal or sensitive data at risk.

Key steps to building a strategic audit plan

So, how do you build a strategic audit plan? It’s one thing to understand the necessity of strategy in audit planning and execution — it’s another to put this into practice.

Here are three steps to help you build a solid strategic action plan.

Step 1: Risk-based prioritization

First up are risk assessments. Businesses need to identify potential areas of risk then prioritize these risks based on their potential impact on the organization.

For example, a company might carry out email risk assessments that evaluate the number of spam and phishing messages received each day, the type of malware or other malicious code these messages carry, and the likelihood that users will click through.

If total volumes are low but user engagement is high, then the priority isn’t building better digital defenses but rather taking the time to educate staff on how to respond if they receive a suspicious email.

Step 2: Stakeholder engagement

Next is key stakeholder engagement, specifically senior management and the C-suite board itself. There are two reasons this engagement is critical.

Monetary support is first. Without the budget backing of C-suite team members, GRC leaders and audit teams can’t create plans that effectively address critical risks. At best, they can keep the digital wolves at bay, but this isn’t enough to earn (or keep) critical certifications, nor does it allow for the root cause of risks to be sufficiently mitigated or solved for.

C-suite backing also identifies a responsible party — someone who takes on the role of audit champion and is expected to show proof that audit efforts were successful. This responsibility drives accountability, and establishes a risk-based tone-at-the-top, which in turn helps ensure teams have the resources they need.

Step 3: Resource allocation

Finally, resources must be effectively allocated to ensure high-priority audit areas are addressed. For example, it’s worth assigning staff to audit efforts for their duration, rather than tasking them with balancing current duties and audit processes.

In line with the IIA Standard, 3.1, it’s also critical that resources are assigned based on their competency. Auditors must have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and ability to complete each given audit within the organization. Having a proper strategic audit plan allows resources to be allocated based on their competency and audits to be completed appropriately.

In addition, businesses allocate budgets for third-party assessments that take place after internal evaluations but before compliance reviews. These assessments can help catch issues that internal audits missed. These misses often occur because internal staff are familiar with operational processes. As a result, they make logical assumptions that aren’t supported by data. Third-party auditors don’t share the same unconscious bias.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Before diving headlong into audit planning, it’s worth taking the time to identify common pitfalls and determine ways to avoid them.

Three of the most common include lack of resources, data silos, and inflexible plans.

Lack of resources

A lack of money, time, or personnel can derail audit efforts. For example, if teams can identify but not resolve issues due to budget constraints, they’ve only completed half of the process. Attempting to obtain certification through external audits becomes impossible until these issues are corrected.

Money without skilled personnel presents the same problem. Spending won’t improve security if there aren’t enough experts on the ground to remediate key issues.

Data silos

Silos are another common audit pitfall. If departments or databases aren’t connected, teams may miss critical information or find themselves dealing with duplicate data sets. Without the full picture, risks may not be completely identified, while redundant data sources can lead to wasted efforts.

Inflexible plans

Static planning is a common pitfall for strategic goals. Traditionally, audit plans are developed annually in response to collected data. In a world now driven by on-demand services and always-on connections, however, these static plans aren’t sufficient. Instead, businesses need dynamic audit planning that adapts in response to business, technology, or risk landscape changes.

Leveraging technology for strategic audit planning

Technology can help streamline strategic audit planning. In much the same way that generative AI solutions can boost customer service and ERP systems can streamline operational performance, using the right technology can help simplify strategic audit planning.

Here are a couple key solutions for strategic planning.

Automation

Automation reduces the time and effort required to identify and resolve audit issues. It also streamlines the creation of strategic audit plans by determining risk-based audit frequencies and enabling the collection of both internal evidence and documents provided by clients. For example, teams can create automatic reporting frameworks that trigger in response to key events, such as unauthorized access attempts or unencrypted data transfers. This is a great way to determine if actual risk aligns with predicted outcomes.

Dashboards and analytics

You can’t fix what you can’t see. Visual reporting using dashboards backed by comprehensive data analytics makes it easier for teams to pinpoint key areas of action and allows GRC managers to better engage with C-suite executives.

When leaders can see what’s happening in real time and are confident that this information is backed by thorough analysis, they’re more inclined to provide the monetary and personal resources necessary to address audit concerns.

Integrated workflows

Disconnected workflows create continuity risks. By linking audit planning to risk assessments, security controls, and reporting and displaying all this data in a single platform, teams save time and effort. Instead of switching apps to find key data, then formatting and transferring this data to other solutions, all relevant information is accessible on demand.

How AuditBoard supports strategic audit planning

With AuditBoard, your teams are better prepared to create audit plans that limit risk, align with business goals, and increase ROI. Key components of the AuditBoard solution include these:

Risk-based planning features

Integrated risk management from AuditBoard lets you view all organization-wide risks easily using a single connected register and standardized language. Our solution also lets you leverage real-time data to identify trends, build a more proactive audit program, and foster increased cross-functional collaboration across GRC functions within your organization.

The result? Strategic audits that account for key risks, address key requirements simultaneously, and allow for dynamic risk–based audit frequencies.

Real-time dashboards and collaboration

Real-time dashboards let you prioritize tasks across GRC functions and streamline reporting for stakeholders. Dashboards can be customized by modifying data elements, creating new calculations, and adjusting for data formatting. This lets you drill deeper into raw data to discover actionable audit insights.

From audit management to regulatory compliance to risk reduction, AuditBoard can help level up your audits and compliance management. Data tells the tale: Equipped with our connected risk platform, teams see a 49% deeper understanding of risks to help improve decision-making, enjoy 50% more efficient stakeholder engagement, and report 53% more efficient evidence collection.

Ready to transform your audit and GRC functions into strategic benefits? Start with connected planning, analytics, and risk management from AuditBoard. Request your demo today.

About the authors

Brandi Anastasiades, CISA, is a Commercial Account Executive at AuditBoard. As an experienced information technology auditor, SOX/ICFR compliance professional, & Deloitte alumna, she has served various multinational corporations throughout the Tri-State & New England areas. Connect with Brandi on LinkedIn.