Fiction or Reality : IA Failure

Arvind, a young Internal Auditor had reached the internal audit location on time at 9:00 AM. He had the entire day at his disposal to spend on the audit area as planned. Mr. Swami, the Functional Head who had not been able to find time to see the email from the corporate office about the internal audit, exclaimed seeing Arvind. He asked him to wait for some time saying that the corporate office has not forewarned him about the Internal Audit. After some time he called up the corporate office in front of Arvind asking for sending the email again.

At 10.00 AM, Mr. Swami called Arvind in his office. Mr. Swami started with a waffler and took about an hour speaking unnecessary things without answering the Arvind's main questions on the audit area. Arvind broke in between to ask questions differently but Mr. Swami started with his Dog & Pony Show giving a long elaborate presentation to impress Arvind so that it may become difficult for Arvind to see the main issues. It was almost 12 PM then. He took Arvind for a round of the factory, which proved to be a very long round consuming one more hour. Mr. Swami suggested Arvind a good place for lunch. His idea seemed apparently to be to form a good working relationship with Arvind. The place suggested by Mr. Swami was miles away from the factory and after heavy lunch both returned at around 3.00 PM.

After coming from lunch, Mr. Swami left Arvind saying that he will be back in 30 minutes as he has a meeting with local excise officer. When Mr. Swami finally arrived after 1.5 hours, he saw Arvind, who had spilt some tea from his cup on the table. He then started lecturing Arvind for ensuring that he abides by complex hygiene and safety regulation. This was again a delaying mechanism by Mr. Swami. At around 5:00 PM Arvind started making some probing questions and asked for some documents and invoices. He told Arvind that he is not supposed to answer those questions as it is not making any business sense. He insisted to stop audit in lack of clarity about the scope. Unluckily Arvind had forgotten to bring the scope document and it wasted another half an hour. Mr. Swami then started suggesting areas which Arvind should look into. At around 5:30 PM and after some struggle, Arvind convinced Mr. Swami to give him the sample documents for his review as listed by him.

Mr. Swami came to Arvind at 5:45 PM without any documents. On asking for the documents again Mr. Swami exclaimed which documents he is talking about. Then he said Oh yes, I will just bring those to your table. At Around 6:15 PM, Mr. Swami came with few documents saying that he was unable to bring all the samples as requested as some documents are in processing with other departments and thus he picked up some other samples instead which were available with him but not listed on Arvind's list.

Arvind, the smart internal auditor picked up a serious problem from the given samples and asked about it to Mr. Swami. Mr. Swami suggested that this is a special one of case. He started abusing Arvind indirectly for his lack of knowledge about the business. When Arvind asked for more details about the said transaction, Mr. Swami told him that the accounting personnel who has the needed documents is on leave and he has no access to his drawers. He started then admiring and flattering Arvind for becoming over familiar with him. He won Arvind's mercy very soon when he spoke about a major deadline approaching that weekend and about his wife's illness.

This all took around half an hour more and around 6:45 PM; Mr. Chauhan, the Engineering head, who also lived near Mr. Swami's house, came there to offer him lift in his car. Mr. Swami looked at Arvind and said that he has provided him with all the data and now he has to call off the day as it takes about one hour to reach his house in the evening traffic and he has to cook food due to illness of his wife.

Mr. Swami suggested speaking to Mr. Ayengar in case he needs any documents or clarification. Mr. Ayenger did not know a single word in English or Hindi and he could only speak native language. After struggling a bit with Mr. Ayenger, Arvind given up and started enjoying the expensive chocolates which Mr. Swami had brought for him that evening.

At around 7:30 PM Arvind decided to pack up to catch the train of 8:30 PM to Mumbai as there were chances of heavy traffic as suggested by Mr. Swami.

After a week Mr. Swami received a report from Arvind which suggested that every thing was found to be in order.