Information Technology Industry

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Definition of Information Technology
There is no standard or official definition of “Information Technology”. Every author has his own comprehension and interpretation but his illustration is similar with others. I prefer to Professor Rajaraman’s statement that Information Technology may be defined as the technology that is used to acquire, store, organize, process, and disseminate processes data which can be used in specified applications (2013, p. 1).[1] Information Technology system contains four essential components which are hardware, software, data and people (ITL Education Solutions Limited, 2006, p. 178).[2] Therefore, we can infer that the Information Technology (IT) industry is industry which involved in manufacture physical equipment such as computers, routers and mobile devices to make people available to operate, research and develop software to access and process data. For instance, telecommunication entities, telephone and computer manufacturers, internet application developers are considered as members of IT industry.
Current situation of IT industry
In the report of TEKsystems’ Annual IT Forecast 2014 (2014, p.3), [3] IT industry (excluding telecommunications) occupies 29% of the whole industry pie among ten main industries and become the biggest part in 2013. In addition, the ICT industry trade association released news titled “Positives outweigh challenges” and forecasted that the IT industry is likely grows moderate in 2014 (2014). [4]
Inherent risk in IT industry
As the rapid development of information technology, IT industry expands its business to most parts of our life, for example, media, education, publication, manufacturing, mobile computing, public sector, defence services, and so forth. The products ...

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...r whether its internal controls are able to address new risks. Monitoring occurs both on an ongoing basis and one-time evaluations. Risk monitoring not only evaluates the performance of risk-reducing measures but also serves as a continuing audit function (Bandyopadhyay, Mykytyn, & Mykytyn, 1999). [13] Internal audit activities can test the design and effectiveness of internal controls and find out potential material misstatements in the financial report.
Conclusion
As an emerging high-tech and wide applied industry, IT industry has relatively high inherent risks even effected by other industries. In the process of development, managers and auditors keep seeking effective and efficient internal controls to reduce the risks as possible. When audit a company operating in IT industry, auditors need to consider the size and complexity, especially the technical risks.

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