Thesis (Master in Management)--University of the Philippines Mindanao, December 2014.

Confidential

The increasing business operations of CHIEFS Commercial Group of Companies increase the demand for process controls and risk management. There are also pressing demands to review compliance of the company with the statutory and regulatory laws required to the organization. With these factors, there is a need for assessment of existence, effectiveness, and consistency of implementation of internal controls. As such, the Internal Audit Department (IAD) was established in 2012 to perform an independent and objective evaluation and provide assurance and consultancy to the organization. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the external and internal environments of IAD in order to formulate the best-fit strategy for the Department over the next three years from 2015 to 2017. The IAD is faced with challenges on prioritization of auditable areas considering the wide scope of CHIEFS Commercial Company, the flexibilities in the audit operation, and balancing the cost of audit operations with the benefits of the organization. A modified top-down and bottom-up approaches of strategic planning adapted from Morato (2006) was used to guide the formulation of this plan. However, other frameworks and methodologies were integrated to facilitate detailed analysis of the components of this paper. For the external analysis, two factors were considered to determine the opportunities and threats of IAD, namely: (1) external factors: Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, and Technological (PEST), affecting the whole organization; and, (2) corporate external factors representing other departments, business units and business support groups of CHIEFS Commercial Company. The internal analysis utilizes the Leavitt?s Organizational Diagnosis Model to determine strengths and weaknesses of the Department. From those analyses, strategies were formulated using the SWOT Matrix vis-à-vis the IAD objectives. There were five (5) strategic options identified and evaluated using the SPACE and QSPM Matrices. Based on these evaluations, the chosen best-fit strategy is to intensify the Internal Audit Services. This would include institutionalization of risk-based IA services and building up of auditors? technical competencies to effectively perform the audit activities. Certain programs and activities were identified for implementation to improve IAD?s operations through its structure, tasks, people, and technology. One of the critical actions that IAD needs to do at earliest time is to lobby from the Board and management of CHIEFS Commercial Group of Companies the creation of the Audit Committee (AC) which shall provide the oversight function for the whole Department. Likewise, the audit tasks of IAD needs to be prioritized using the risk-based approach. Hence, there is a need to formulated an integrated risk management plan and to develop tools that will establish control mechanisms to enhance risk management practices of the entire organization. Human resource had to undergo training and skills development to obtain competencies needed to effectively conduct audit functions and deliver the expected outputs from IAD. With these strategy and implementing programs, the IAD is expected to achieve its objectives over the next three (3) years, which are: (1) conduct assessment review of at least 80% of the company?s key business processes which are critical and high risk areas; (2) operationalize Compliance Audit Unit in 2015 and to conduct compliance audits to 70% of identified high risks business activities from different Bus and BCGs by 2017; and, (3) reduce personnel turnover to 5% over the next 3 years.