Understanding and Auditing "Digital Transformation"
27th October, 2026 | 09:00 - 12:30 CET
28th October, 2026 | 09:00 - 12:30 CET
Organizations today face a growing number of challenges whose underlying issues are increasingly interconnected and, taken together, are changing the way organizations work. This development raises the fundamental question of whether classic, project-based transformation processes can still meet these demands, and what alternatives exist. For internal audit, this is significant: its task is not to audit a single transformation process in isolation, but to identify and assess opportunities and risks across all levels of an organization affected, and to do so, it is necessary to understand what transformation, both today and in the future, actually entails. This is exactly where this seminar begins.
Core Topics and Guiding Questions
Understanding: Transformation as a Whole
- Is the classic, project-based view of transformation still sufficient to capture the challenges organizations face today, and what alternatives exist?
- How can an organization's option space be systematically captured — what already exists, what is possible with today's means, what is conceivable in principle, and how does this systematic approach help identify previously unknown or future risks within the Internal Control System (ICS) at an early stage?
- What different models and analytical approaches enable different perspectives on the transformation of one's own organization, and help audit today's and future transformation processes more effectively?
- What further factors, structures, competencies, decision-making logics, influence an organization's ability to transform?
- How might the demands placed on organizations and their capacity for transformation evolve in the coming years?
Auditing: Consequences for Audit Work
- What new audit topics arise once transformation is understood not as a single project, but as an ongoing, multidimensional process?
- What audit methodology is needed to identify and assess opportunities and risks across multiple levels simultaneously, structure, culture, competencies, technology, and how can established frameworks such as COSO be extended for this purpose?
- How does internal audit assess whether an organization has actually recognized its own option spaces and interdependencies?
- How must internal audit's audit strategy evolve as the understanding of transformation processes in practice changes?
The Approach of This Seminar
This seminar does not address transformation through a single model or a linear process, but within the framework of the digital-analog option space, as an interplay of multiple perspectives on the organization as a whole. For internal audit, this means: audits become more precise, because they capture the organization as an overall system rather than as a sequence of individual processes. For participating auditors, this also means more efficient auditing, because it is clear from the outset at which levels transformation risks and opportunities may appear.
Target Audience
All auditors, in particular those who audit or support transformation initiatives and programs.
Trainer:
Christoph Deeg has spent more than 20 years working on the design of the digital-analog living environment and helps organizations develop comprehensive digital-analog strategies. For 13 years, he has been applying this expertise for the Audit Research Center (ARC-Institute), translating it specifically into the logic of internal audit. In doing so, he has worked with a large number of international audit functions of varying size. His focus is on thinking beyond classic audit logic - he is brought in when it comes to restructuring an audit function or developing new audit and internal control strategies. His approach is consistently systemic, while remaining closely oriented toward audit practice. The value for participants accordingly lies not in classic audit knowledge, but in the ability to precisely identify and assess scope, strategy, and new topics, particularly digital ones. In this way, he connects the perspective of digital transformation as a whole with the concrete requirements of audit practice.
