We proceeded to iCISA, Noida immediately after our Departmental Exams. Now, the whole batch travelled by Bus, while I decided to go by bike. It had been long since I did a bike trip and I wanted to ride the mountain. The story of the bike trip is a long one, which I will reserve for some other time.
iCISA, an acronym of International Centre for Information Systems Audit, of the CAG of India is an international standard training institute under the Supreme Audit Institution of India. Its mandate is to serve as a centre for training and excellence of audit officers from both India and Abroad. The primary focus, as the name suggests is on the audit of information systems.
(Academic Block, iCISA)
Our week at iCISA, however, had the objective of exposing us to two topics primarily. The first one was to the ERP Systems that are used in many government institutions these days. As auditors, very often we would have to access and download the data of the auditee through his ERP system. Therefore it is essential that we know how to use an ERP system and also the popular modules that are used by them.
We were at the GAIL Training institute at Noida, where we were introduced to SAP-ERP and their implementation of it. GAIL was one of the first government organisations to effectively transition to SAP and therefore had considerable expertise in the software. The Classes were primarily based on the business processes of GAIL and I found that a lack of context regarding their business process hindered our full utilisation of the attachment. Nevertheless, being a computer Science Engineer, I enjoyed the sessions very well and could follow most of the concepts that we were being exposed to.
(At the Gail Training Institute, NOIDA)
The second objective of our NOIDA attachment was to expose us to the use of Data Analytics in IA&AD. The faculty that took classes were from Centre for Data Management and Analytics which worked at the CAG Office, New Delhi. This was a relatively new centre that began under the current CAG, Mr. Shashikanth Sharma. He was convinced that the world of Audit would lag behind as long as Data Analytics is not taken up in the department. Initially it started as a small group to explore Data Analysis and how it could be used in the department and finding that Data Analytics could significantly help the department in identifying risk areas and find patterns in government finances, CDMA was found1.
Data Analysis in Audit is still in its infancy. We primarily employ Analytics at the Audit Planning stage. Given that the department does not have the manpower to audit everything, analysis helps in pinpointing exceptions and anomalies and thereby point to risk areas. The kind of analysis that is done is descriptive and exploratory with not much causative, predictive analysis undertaken.
We were exposed to Tableau (Software) and Knime (Software). I was so thrilled with all these classes and was happy to play around with all these techniques and tools. We analysed some data related to Defence Pensions, Tax Data of Chennai Muncipal Corporation etc and also presented our findings.
The iCISA campus also requires some mention here. Being an international training centre it is very well maintained. We were allowed single rooms with in the campus. The facilities included a swimming pool ( which unluckily for us was under maintenance), gym, mini golf course, basketball court, tennis court, badminton, table tennis, and football ground. The class rooms, labs etc were of very high quality. Many of us infant opined at one time or the other that we want our academy to be shifted to iCISA, which also brings you to NCR region. The main problem with Shimla is the lack of facilities that comes with hilly terrain.
(Swimming Pool at iCISA)
(Tennis Court)
iCISA attachment was one of the most enjoyable attachments that we had till date. Once we were done with iCISA, we proceeded to National Institute of Financial Management, Faridabad where we were to be taught cost and management Accounting.