Customer Success Review: BDO Risk Advisory Services – The Netherlands Increases Efficiencies with “Three Lines of Defence Environment” Introduction BDO is a global top-five accounting firm, providing assurance, tax, financial advisory and consulting services to a wide range of publicly traded and privately held companies. Boasting more than 2,000 skilful and experienced employees in the Netherlands, BDO’s proud claim is that they “always have an office near you”. The Dutch firm is a member of the global BDO network of autonomous and independent firms that provide professional services under the BDO label. About 25 people work in the Risk Advisory practice in the Netherlands. Sepia Solutions is the Ideagen business partner for the Benelux countries and specialises in providing and supporting client focussed Audit and Risk Management software to organisations worldwide. Sepia Solutions is an Ideagen accredited Level 3 Implementation partner (our highest level of accreditation) as such, the company is trained and qualified and certified to deliver the most advanced Pentana Vision based integrated audit and risk management solutions to our clients. We engaged with John Hijmans, a partner within BDO in their Risk Advisory Services Team, we asked him what has Ideagen’s Pentana Vision software implementation enabled? In Partnership with "Pentana Vision has enabled the three lines of defence in our client Risk Management and Control environment to work together more effectively. In addition, our clients are better able to communicate their Risk and Control environment to stakeholders." - John Hijmans, Partner, BDO Risk Advisory Services The challenge John outlined the challenges that the BDO Netherlands Risk Advisory services team faced: “Prior to BDO’s engagement with Sepia Solutions the software solutions that we offered to clients in GRC assignments did not include specific audit & risk tools.” Our challenges therefore were:    Maintenance of the risk and controls environment Co-operation to achieve the “three lines of defence” Automated audit trail documentation” John further commented: “Other software packages had been considered, however Ideagen’s Pentana Vision matched our demands and expectations best. Working closely with Alain Rousseau from Sepia Solutions we determined that Ideagen’s Pentana Vision was flexible enough to meet our and our clients specific needs and importantly it is built in a manner that helps to structure the thought processes of the risk and compliance officers and auditors.” Solution John detailed where Ideagen’s Pentana Vision has made a difference: “The effectiveness in the cooperation of the three lines of defence was sub optimal. Without a software tool it was difficult to work together in the same formats and processes. Also, the documentation of an audit trail was not automated and therefore not as clear.” This meant that it was difficult to maintain an up-to-date Risk and Control environment and work together effectively in the three lines of defence. Ideagen’s Pentana Vision has helped BDO to get to the next level in terms of Risk and Control activities. In Partnership with “Our team uses Pentana Vision to conduct the activities for the Risk Management and Internal Audit function for an insurance company. These functions are outsourced to BDO.” “Before we adopted Pentana Vision, when we made changes to our Risk and Control environment in Excel it was not clear who made the changes and what the changes were. Critically, certain changes and decisions that were made were not visible. This resulted in the possibility that there was a lack of control and insight. With Pentana Vision there is a clear and well-structured process and insight into an audit trail.” “Pentana Vision also provides for very flexible configuration options that as a user you can maintain yourself (e.g. Terminology, Segmentation (selection lists), Audit Universe, Views, Steps Library, Risk & Control Library, etc.). We have found that most parts of Pentana Vision can be tailored to our demands. Specifically, the options with views and the options for creating reports are very flexible. Pentana Vision has enabled the three lines of defence to work together more effectively. Additionally, because of the quality of the information that we now have access to the company is better able to communicate about its Risk and Control environment to stakeholders. 2. Reports can be easily generated which aids in communicating to stakeholders and creating risk awareness; 3. GRC has become more visible which helps to have better discussions and thereby functions as a powerful tool in decision making.” “As a result of our adoption of Ideagen’s Pentana Vision, the Audit Committee and the Board of Directors of our client can be informed more thoroughly about the Risk & Control environment of the organisation which helps with decision making and determining the focus for timely and appropriate actions and activities.” Implementation John describes the experience of working with Sepia Solutions Alain Rousseau and Ideagen’s Pentana Vision Software. The most important benefit of Pentana Vision to us is the real-time insight into the Risk & Control framework. Three features that provide added value are: 1. Risk Management, Compliance and Internal Audit can all work with the same tool which leads to increased effectiveness of the three lines of defence; In Partnership with “The implementation went smoothly. An important part of the implementation process with Sepia Solutions is a well-structured and complete training programme. This training programme fully prepares the different users to be able to get the most out of Pentana Vision.” “Alain Rousseau from Sepia Solutions is very knowledgeable and worked cooperatively with us to translate our specific needs to the Risk & Control environment in the tool. The support is thorough and timely as Alain always puts in his best effort to meet the needs of the clients.” Conclusion BDO Netherlands John Hijmans summarises his views on the implementation: “I highly recommend Ideagen’s Pentana Vision and Sepia Solutions. The combination provides a powerful tool for audit, risk and compliance departments and will certainly help us to become a better equipped and even more professional organisation. Alain Rousseau of Sepia Solutions is highly recommended for his expertise and professionalism.” “Since our first implementation together, we have already incorporated Pentana Vision into other proposals because we see an added value in combining our own expertise with professional software that brings everything together nicely and makes the data more tangible.” Contact us Ideagen Plc Website: www.ideagenplc.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0) 1629 699100 Sepia Solutions Website: www.sepiasolutions.net Email: [email protected] Tel: +32 3 877 1210 In Partnership with