Technology Audit Mission
“Driving decisions through digital transformation for all industries made easy, safe, secure, scalable, timely and cost effective across the globe.”
Foundation for Digital Transformation…
"A Government of India (HRD Ministry) recognised service, copyrighted for Audit Methodology & Framework"
"Technology Audit – A Key Enabler for Digital Transformation Initiatives. Our Information Technology Audit (TA) Services – © Inspace Business Impact Evaluator (IBIE), has been copyrighted and recognised by HRD Ministry, Government of India for its Audit Methodology and Framework.
Our TA Services comprising of IT Infrastructure Audit (Network / Servers / Endpoints / Connectivity / Power) for Performance / Security / Scalability, ERP / SW Application Audit for Business Alignment. Key users interview on key issues / benefits of IT. Overall, TA gives gaps and recommendations on IT investments done vs. Business goals. TA is an enabler for Digital Transformation initiatives for business across various industries."
What is Technology Audit?
Technology Audit which is an auditing service done to understand the present technology utilization level of an organization. This is very similar to an Accounting Audit that is conducted in almost every company. It provides a benchmark for, where the business is now, in terms of technology. The audit can help identify strengths and weaknesses. It's really a snapshot of the organization's technology infrastructure. The evaluation of the collected evidence determines if the information technology is operating effectively and efficiently to achieve the organization's business goals or objectives.
Why we need to do Technology Audit?
The Technology Audit for organizations from any domain is a MUST to ensure optimum performance in the day to day operations and decision making. It helps the organization to understand and utilize technology MORE EFFECTIVELY. The success of this Audit is that it does not recommend investing more; rather it helps to get more out of existing technology investments.
Our Technology Audit includes various components and addresses the critical and major pain points of different IT areas as detailed below:
- Sudden power failure of UPS
- Over-utilisation and under-utilisation of UPS capacity
- UPS power cabling issues
- Battery backup for the load applied
- Climate control measures taken up for the UPS and battery placement
- Fire hazards that pose a potential threat to the environment.
Audit Recommendations:
- Safe and climate-controlled placement of UPS & batteries
- Overloading or Underloading of UPS
- Possible resolution of UPS issues
- Network speed drops
- Sudden connectivity failure with devices
- Wireless signal strength issues
- Network architecture and design
- Cable routing and type of cables being utilised
- Active and passive network components
Audit Recommendations:
- Network architecture &design as per best practices
- Cabling standards and routing
- Network equipment safe placement & environment
- Active & Passive (wired & wireless) components maintenance
- High-availability setup for minimal downtime
- Possible resolution of network performance issues
- Internet connectivity speed drops
- Failover and load-balancing setup
- Bandwidth utilisation
- Unauthorised usage of internet services
- Content filtering to avoid certain categories of websites
- Firewall setup (policies for allowing/disallowing user access to websites)
- Email services (unauthorised sending of emails, blocking of attachments, controlling size or type of attachments).
Audit Recommendations:
- Internet bandwidth usage & requirements
- Restriction of unauthorized bandwidth usage
- Load balancing & failover configuration
- Email filtering for data monitoring
- Firewall policies for optimal security
- Increased downtime of servers
- Recovery from crash (both physical and virtual)
- Storage space management
- Operating system compatibility issues
- Automated backup and restoration of the backed-up data
- Performance of server, storage and backup equipment for optimum operations
Audit Recommendations:
- Optimal configuration for servers based on the user load
- Storage technology and space based on usage and forecast
- Best practices for the Backup and Restoration process
- Maintenance of server equipment for minimal downtime
- Possible resolution of server, storage and backup issues
- Recovery from crashes and minimising the downtime
- Repair / replacement and upgrade spares availability
- Standard hardware configuration across the organisation
- End-to-end audit or sampling audit can be scoped as required.
Audit Recommendations:
- Optimal configuration for desktops/laptops based on usage parameters
- Maintenance of desktop/laptop including spares as per best practices
- Asset tagging & maintenance
- Possible resolution of desktop/laptop issues
- Using MS Excel to take reports after investing in ERP
- Utilisation levels of the Application by users (module-wise)
- Scope for improvement areas
- Functional audit on the mapping of business requirements with the functionality
- Technical audit on the coding (coding standards and best practices).
Audit Recommendations:
- Fitment of the existing application vis-à-vis the business process
- Utilisation levels of existing application department/module-wise
- Module-wise recommendations for optimal usage
- Technical architecture & design as per best practices
- Coding methodology as per best practices
- Unauthorised usage of software by staff
- Legal compliance issue due to pirated applications
- Find actual gaps in the license
- Identify open source alternatives to reduce investments
Audit Recommendations:
- Identification of unlicensed software and gap in available licenses
- Recommendation on open source / freeware alternatives
- Vulnerable network
- USB / Email data leakage
- Physical security (entry/exit registering, CCTV surveillance)
- End-to-end Logical security (including VA-PT audits)
- Data and equipment theft
Audit Recommendations:
- Recommendation for mitigating VA-PT Gaps
- Hardened Server environment for robust security
- Firewall policy and monitoring
- Recommendations for physical security as per best practices
- Collective view of the key users driving the organisation
- Understand training requirements
- Identify the key expectations of the majority of stakeholders.
Audit Recommendations:
- Key Users' knowledge level for utilising technology investment of company
- Recommendation for areas of training required by key users
The above audits can be clubbed together in a single package as Technology Audit or can be individually done and taken up in a phased manner as per the business requirement.
The capstone of Technology Audit is the Audit Findings Report which includes gap analysis, recommendations pertaining to technology upgrade / downgrade, training requirements and plan of action.
Technology Audit recommendation sets the direction for organizations to optimize Return of Investment on IT
This Audit Report facilitates the clients to understand the following critical parameters:
- Potential Security threats / gaps and their removal plan
- Understand training requirements
- Identify the key expectations of the majority of stakeholders.
