Spotlight: auditing in India
What can you expect from an audit in India? Girdhar Gyani, secretary general of the Quality Council of India gives an overview of the country’s auditing system, how it has changed, and certain customs you might encounter.
The perception of auditing in India has changed from a feeling that certification was a 'necessary evil' to gaining widespread acceptance. In the beginning, whatever the auditor uttered was gospel truth and the auditee was over-eager to please the auditor by making corrections, not necessarily corrective actions. The main focus was to shut out the non-conformity by whatever means.
Today, a large number of organizations are certified and have systems of internal and external auditing. They have a large pool of certificated auditors. The auditees and auditors are more competent than before and organizations who want to benefit from the good preaching of the standard put in great effort to eliminate the root causes of non-conformities. There are still those who only want to have a 'piece of paper' in the form of a certificate, and look at the audit process as a formality mostly with quick-fix solutions. However, more and more organizations in India realize that the former approach is yielding better results for them.
Auditor demographics
Though there are no statistics currently available, a majority of auditors are in their forties or older, and predominantly male. The more grey hair they have, the better respect and acceptability they tend to get on the auditee's side. A large number of auditors have an engineering degree as their qualification.
The role of certification bodies
There are substantial differences in the role of certification bodies (CBs) in India. Well established CBs stick to their values and ethics and do not indulge in consultancy of any sort. They are true to their job descriptions – their auditors do not provide solutions to the auditee's problems and non-conformities. These are CBs who have put their values ahead of business interests.
However, there are also CBs who are commercial in outlook. The concept of certification by these CBs is to 'commoditize' the certificate – as though it is available off the shelf from a local supermarket. It is hoped by the Quality Council of India that this tribe will be reduced and eliminated one day.
"There was one hilarious situation where an auditee reported that the 'root cause' for all non-conformities was the 'external auditor'..."
Customs
In India (as in many other parts of the world) guests are treated with a great level of respect and the treatment of auditors is no exception. Most of the time, auditors are afforded even better treatment, as they hold the 'carrot-and-stick', namely 'certificate–and–nonconformity report (NCR)'.
In the presence of the auditor, the auditee generally behaves with humility, giving a lot of respect to the auditor. An auditor who adds value to the organization, and who could be considered as 'strict' by the auditee, is often more respected later on. He may not be liked much when an NCR is written, but in the long run the auditee knows that this 'bitter medicine' is good for the organization.
There have been cases where quality-conscious auditees, particularly top management personnel and management representatives (MRs) of visionary organizations, have 'sought' non-conformities. This is one example of a good audit experience, but the other side of the story also exists. There have been cases where the MRs have told the CB auditor that all customer-related records are confidential, not accessible to the external auditor, as per the organization's procedure, and refused to show them,
There was one hilarious situation where an auditee reported the 'root cause' for all non-conformities is the 'external auditor'. (Hopefully the root cause was not eliminated!)
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