Krishnan Swaminathan Director -IT Advisory Services, Middle East and Alexi Tsafos Assistant Manager from Australia both from KPMG, presented to the Qatar chapter of the IIA on "IT Business Controls" which was attended by more than 100 members evincing keen interest in the topic. The talk aimed to impart know how on what are IT Business controls and the benefits of using them. Examples were given for preventive and detective controls which illustrated the type of IT Business controls one would implement in a typical SAP business cycle. Swami emphasized that due to the speed with which systems are being implemented currently, designing and implementing effective controls and security are often ignored. It is important to ensure that getting controls "right" during the initial software implementation.

Alexi a specialist in IT control tools talked about Governance Risk and Controls (GRC) tools such as SAP GRC, Oracle GRC and Approva. The presentation ended with a message to the Internal Audit community to "educate" their employers about the importance of getting controls into the ERP design by involving Internal Audit early on in the implementation cycle. Proper controls at the design stage of the project would mean that organizations do not have to sacrifice performance for effective controls to be in place. IT can be used for compliance management, to gain a competitive advantage through process and control efficiencies.