ISACF has prepared Control Objectives for Enterprise

In the rapidly changing world in which we live, we face the
challenge of understanding how these changes have altered the
rules by which our societies run. In particular, both laws and the
financial accounting frameworks that each country has set up to
govern and regulate the operation of commercial and non-commercial
enterprises are under threat.
One threat comes from the ease with which globalization and
worldwide communications can override national boundaries.
Given that our governance framework has evolved within the
parameters of a nation-state, the business paradigm is severely
constrained by this framework.
A second threat comes from the uncertainty as to how well
financial accounting frameworks, developed to serve the postindustrial
society, can be adapted to serve the needs of the information
and knowledge-based entities of today. For instance,
conventional frameworks fail to adequately recognize or
account for the importance of intellectual capital in a knowledge
based society.
A third threat comes from the challenge of understanding
how enterprises including associated entities are currently run,
and how they can be governed effectively in the evolving shift
to a knowledge based society. This last threat is very difficult to
take action on, especially when one considers the complex links
among the computers, systems, databases, and network communications
which enable enterprises to function.
It is to address major parts of these threats that the
Information Systems Audit and Control Foundation (ISACF)
has developed an “Enterprise Governance Model”. Within this
model, ISACF has prepared Control Objectives for Enterprise
Governance which focuses strongly on both the enterprise business
goals and the Information Technology enablers, which
allow the enterprise to be governed. These Control Objectives
advise both executives and managers as to what controls they
should look for in their enterprise, and within the wider global
communications environment in which it operates.
ISACF recognizes that the work of the Committee of
Sponsoring Organisations of the Treadway Commission –
Internal Control Framework (COSO), has provided the basis for
the business process model and the model now put forward by
extending the scope of coverage to the whole enterprise.