Get to Know Kaushik Bahtia

Kaushik Bhatia is a Business Consultant and Partner with MNP’s Enterprise Risk Services group, and brings two decades of experience in public accounting. Although Kaushik started his career with financial statement audit services, he later found a passion for working with technology clients and helping them with IT controls and system and organization controls (SOC) reporting. In this Q & A, learn what ignites his passion for growing his team, providing exemplary services, and building meaningful connections with people.

What inspired you to shift your career focus from financial statement audits to IT audits?

As a Chartered Accountant from India, starting a career in financial statement audits formed the foundation for learning about various businesses, the key risks faced by them and several opportunities to think creatively, while developing insights for my clients. My clients always looked for services beyond the audit and were interested in solutions on how to run their businesses efficiently and effectively. With rapid modernization and innovation, several complex computer applications and complex ERPs paved the way for integrating operations into financial reporting. The traditional audit approach of auditing around the computer transformed to “auditing the computer”. This transformation gave me the opportunity to learn about technology and perform audits by leveraging on automated and application controls.

Why do you think IT controls are important?

In today’s day and age we do everything using technology, from switching on and off the lights at home to ordering coffee to booking a ride or a hotel and even banking. I cannot imagine losing my phone or my tablet. These advancements have introduced several new risks that may not have been given the attention in the past. Risks such as stealing credentials to gain wrongful access, overriding authorization parameters, not backing up data regularly etc. These risks can be mitigated by implementing several technology controls to ensure that transactions are processed accurately, and that data is protected securely and can be made available when needed.

What inspired you to focus on SOC auditing and consulting needs?

For companies that are service providers and build applications (aka SaaS providers), building trust with their customers is a fundamental aspect of their business. SOC audit and reports provide an excellent opportunity to SaaS providers to demonstrate that they have the appropriate controls framework in place that can provide the assurance to their customers to build the trust.

These SOC reports include IT governance, IT controls and operational controls work aligns with my interests and passion. My passion is to provide pragmatic advice to my clients to implement these controls, and help them acquire new customers and retain existing customers through our SOC readiness assessment and SOC audit.

What do you like most about being a part of the MNP team?

The values championed by MNP really speak to me. Although a large national firm, MNP is very local in focus and that allows me to build meaningful connections with both colleagues and clients. I appreciate the fact the firm really provides the resources and commitment to grow my team – so we can continue to provide the exemplary service to our clients that they have grown to expect and rely on from the various experts across the firm.