Guidelines for sourcing Audit Services: The Company’s shareholders through the board are responsible for appointment of the Company’s external auditor. The governance Audit committee plays an important role on behalf of the board through design of guidelines to inform the procedures for attraction of the best audit service providers and to retain the services of the selected service provider.

Procuring and Pre-approval of audit services: The committee is further tasked with the role of procuring and pre-approval of audit services from a pool of potential audit service providers. It is the audit committee that does the selection on behalf of the shareholders regarding which firm to procure its services based on its competitive edge and the organizational, national and international accounting standards.

Auditor’s Plan: The Audit committee also plays an important role of reviewing of the independent auditor’s plan for an integrated audit of the annual financial statement. The Auditor is normally brought on board through a formal engagement and thus is accountable in terms of fulfilling his role as an auditor. Thus a plan by the auditor is very critical since it sets out the auditors deliverables, resources and the methodology deployed.

Review Audited Statements: As the Company’s stewards, the board through the audit committee is responsible for the review and scrutiny of the financial statements audited or reviewed by the independent auditor. It is a statutory requirement that the AGM discussions around the company’s financial performance are based on the audited accounts.

Auditor’s Independence: The audit committee is also responsible for the monitoring the auditor’s independence. Both the internal and external auditor is entitled to a certain degree of independence as set out by relevant statutes and international guidelines.

Auditor rotation requirement: There is always need to appoint a new auditor once the current auditor has served for a given number of terms. This is referred to as auditor rotation. The Audit committee is charged with the responsibility of developing and implementing guidelines on auditor rotation requirements. This helps in the determination on the conditions that must be fulfilled and when to appoint a new auditor.

Determination of Audit Fees: The Audit committee is in charge of the formal approval of fees for both audit and non-audit services with a keen focus on improving the quality of audit and non-audit services. It ensured that the proposed fees are reasonable at the same time ensure that it is able to secure quality services.

Review of Internal Controls: Internal controls are very crucial when it comes to ensuring that the organization is able to safeguard it assets and property as well as ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in organizational processes. It is the work of the audit committee to address any concerns or risks threatening the effectiveness of internal controls which by extension could affect audit activities and the quality of audit services.

Fraud Investigations: Sometimes in the organization, there could be allegations of financial fraud. It is the work of the audit committee to spearhead the investigations into allegations of financial statement fraud that has been brought to their attention and which has the potential to affect the integrity and reliability of financial statements and the effectiveness of a related audit

Making recommendations to the board:  The audit committee can make recommendations to the board on matters related to audit and non-audit services for the approval by the Board.

Organizational Culture: This refers the pattern of behavior that the actors within the organization have adopted over a period of time. The culture that the organization as embedded over time is what holds an organization together. Organizational culture, even though distinct from the code of conduct, greatly influences how employees relate with one another in the organizational set up. A change agent is therefore supposed to assess the organizational culture and find a way of aligning the expected change output with the part of the organizational culture that is constructive.

Organization Structure: An organization structure provides the framework for authority, responsibility and relationships in an organization. It clarifies who is to supervise whom and who is responsible to whom. It serves as the basis of inter-personal relationships between the superiors and the subordinates and the peers.  The organizational structure can either be centralized or decentralized depending on the importance that the management places on their junior staff. As a change agent it is important to consider the organizational structure before and during the implementation of the change management strategy.

Communication Strategy: Coming up with a communication strategy is very important when one wants to execute a change. There should always be a two-way communication in the organization so that the employees know what is going on and react to it. This will go a long way in ensuring that the change attracts minimal resistance since everyone owns the process.

Involvement of Stakeholders: In order to accomplish change and implement change strategies, it is important to ensure involvement of people or staff of the company since such changes affects them in one way or the other. Before adopting a certain position the change agent must first figure out why the change is needed in the first place and the extent to which such changes benefit the stakeholders.

Model/Approach to be applied: Change Management cannot just be implemented through vague approaches but should involve empirically proven methods. The change agent therefore has to deploy relevant methods and try to focus on a suitable plan of action.

Competence and capability as a change agent Change management requires expertise to turnaround the fortunes of the organization. The change agent must therefore possess the requisite qualifications to enable him make informed decision in the process of implementation of change.

Organizational cultural inertia: Cultural inertia refers to the status of the unwillingness to adapt to new ways of doing things. Most organizations are normally trapped by cultural inertia premised on the assumption that all decisions should necessarily be guided by how the organization has been able to handle things in the past. Sometimes this works against the organization by hindering the firm from realizing meaningful transformation to compete in the dynamic business environment. Kodak Company is an example of what can happen to an organization that resists change.

Vested interest: Sometimes vested interests can be the main source of change resistance. Whenever there is a change agent, there are always others who are against the change because they enjoy the benefits of the status quo. For example it may be the desire for a change agent to enable efficiency in service delivery in the public sector. However, there are those who benefit greatly from the inefficiency by providing brokerage services. This is particularly true for services such as land registration and transfer services.

Loss of job security: There is also the concern that employees risk losing their jobs as a result of a change intervention. This is normally true in many cases where the organization seeks to do away with certain level of managements and replaces them with the agile teams as is currently being witnessed in Safaricom. In such a case the planned change may face formidable resistance from the top level managers who risk losing their jobs as a result of restructuring.

Fear of the unknown: Workers are carried by the fear that the new social set-up arising out of the change will be less satisfying than the present set up. There is also the fear of failure which is due to the lack of confidence that by the actors that the change process will yield favourable results.

Lack of understanding on the benefits: The main reason for resistance to change is mainly due to lack of understanding of the benefits of the proposed change. Sometimes those who oppose change do so not based knowledge but due to failure of these concerned individuals to grasp the rational of the change being implemented. Lack of understanding may be as a result of poor communication strategy or even a feeling that the change is being implemented as a form of retribution and not leadership.