{"id":3460,"date":"2012-12-20T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=3460"},"modified":"2012-12-20T07:00:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T15:00:34","slug":"emerging-technology-risks-casting-a-blind-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/emerging-technology-risks-casting-a-blind-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Emerging Technology Risks: Casting a Blind Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emerging Technologies are making life difficult for auditors — and nervous. \u00a0 Methodologies for calculating risks badly need to be updated in order to better assess risks. \u00a0While maybe not a perfect example, and maybe more a question of inadequate due diligence, HP’s recent disastrous $11 billion purchase of Autonomy<\/a> comes to mind as one deal where technology risks were not carefully thought through.<\/p>\n

But consider the many new technologies that companies are now aggressively adopting: cloud computing, smart phones, tablet computers, BYOD, social media, mobile computing, and more. \u00a0As attractive as these technologies may be, how can adoption risks associated with these technologies be assessed if these technologies push the envelope and have no long term track record? \u00a0This is not to mention that taking on new IT projects have a staggeringly high failure rate — as high as 68 percent<\/a>. \u00a0And, on the other side, how much should the risk of ignoring these new technologies be weighted?<\/p>\n

Craig Glindemann<\/a>, partner at EY, said that<\/a> “Risks fall into two categories \u2013 IT and non-IT. \u00a0The non-IT risks are around organisations failing to take advantage on innovation at the same rate as their competitors. IT, on the other hand, is about a host of issues within organizations \u2013 such as consumerization or digital security.” \u00a0On the IT side, not having a full grasp of the implementations of a new technology can have dramatic ramifications.<\/p>\n

A report from Grant Thornton LLP<\/a> found that the top worries with emerging technologies among auditors are in the areas of:<\/p>\n