Six Elements of Infrastructure for Data Analytics

This sample document includes the six elements of infrastructure for an organization's data analytics process.

The six elements of infrastructure is a useful tool for categorizing issues, understanding where problems are occurring within the organization and drawing conclusions to form the basis for recommendations. In Protiviti’s view, the elements of infrastructure should be considered when designing a new process or assessing an existing process. Also, the six elements are common to each process or function. These elements include business policies, business processes, people and organization, management reports, methodologies, and systems and data. These are the capabilities that each process or function should possess, and they provide a comprehensive and consistent framework to communicate the requirements for the appropriate operation of a process or function.

From a business policies perspective, it is important to have the following in place for the data analytics process:

• Understand standard queries.
• Select applicable procedures.
• Embed queries into applications.
• Test logic and confirm results.
• Utilize system-based audit targets.
• Use manually-intensive audit targets.