In most organizations, a familiar pattern occurs: internal audit, internal control, risk management, and operations work from different versions of the same reality.
Each function extracts its own data, its own tools, builds its own dashboards, and defines its own metrics. Reports pile up, information requests multiply, yet the big picture remains fragmented.
Resulting potentially into? Duplicated efforts, conflicting analyses, misaligned priorities, and growing struggles to meet regulatory demands and board expectations.
The question isn't whether each line of defense does its job well. It's how to get all this expertise working together on a common foundation to create real value.
The Three Lines of Defense model, promoted by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), clearly defines who does what:
First line of defense – Operations: They own and manage risk day-to-day, designing, operating, and implementing controls across their activities (purchasing, sales, production, accounting).
Second line of defense – Risk Management, Compliance, and Internal Control: They build the frameworks, policies, and tools, oversee implementation, and ensure risk management and compliance systems work as intended.
Third line of defense – Internal Audit: Reporting to the highest governance level, they provide independent assurance on how well the entire governance and risk management system performs.
The IIA updated this framework in 2020 and 2024 as the "Three Lines Model" to emphasize collaboration over silos, real-time information sharing, smart use of technology as a common working platform, and value creation beyond mere compliance.
This evolution reflects a simple truth: the three lines of defense work better together than apart.
Without a common data foundation, each function reinvents the wheel:
This creates what Deloitte calls "audit fatigue"—operations spend more time answering requests than running the business.
The hidden cost? Hundreds of hours extracting, processing, and reconciling the same data, with definitions that vary by team.
The strategic impact? Without a consolidated view, it's hard to know which location carries the most risk, which processes need fixing, or whether audit recommendations are actually being implemented.
A platform like Eye2Scan serves as a central data hub for your three lines of defense, continuously syncing with ERP systems and giving each line the right level of access.
The concept is straightforward:
Operations spot and fix issues before auditors or controllers find them. They get dashboards showing:
The value? True "assurance by design"—they fix problems immediately, improve processes proactively, and answer to internal audit & control questions with facts.
Risk management, compliance, and internal control teams stop working from periodic extracts and start working from a near-real-time consolidated view:
The value? They prioritize based on facts, challenge operations with precision, and prove oversight effectiveness with KPIs. They monitor instead of collecting.
Internal audit stops spending days preparing data and starts their missions with a complete and current dataset, enabling continuous audit:
The value? Internal audit focuses on analysis and high-impact recommendations, not data gathering. Audit coverage expands without adding headcount. Internal audit shifts from looking backward to looking ahead—providing assurance on what truly matters while advising management on emerging risks and performance opportunities.
All three lines of defense speak the language of data—same definitions, same scope, same metrics. Discussions focus on action, not arguing over whose numbers are right.
Every control, analysis, and indicator benefits everyone. No more asking for the same information three times. Shared investment, multiplied value.
Decisions about where to focus are driven by current, comparative KRIs—not gut feel or habit. The riskiest entities, processes, and exposures surface automatically.
Every anomaly, recommendation, and corrective action is logged. This traceability matters for regulatory compliance and external audits.
Anomalies are caught in weeks, not months or years. Problems get fixed before they escalate.
Each line of defense keeps its role and independence. The shared platform doesn't blur responsibilities—it enables coordination.
A collaborative platform doesn't just reduce risk—it exposes operational inefficiencies (duplicate vendors, obsolete inventory, workarounds), improves financial performance, and builds stakeholder confidence (board, management, external auditors, investors). Governance becomes a performance driver, not just a compliance checkbox.
The Three Lines of Defense framework remains as relevant as ever—provided it rests on a critical foundation: collaboration enabled by shared data.
The real benefit isn't just operational efficiency. It fundamentally changes what each line of defense does all day.
When compliance checks and risk detection run automatically on unified data, hours previously spent gathering information can shift to higher-value work: performance audits, transformation support, root cause analysis, and strategic advisory to management.
Each line keeps its distinct role—manage, oversee, assure—but now works together from the same facts.
Economic bonus: A shared platform splits costs across functions (audit, internal control, compliance, risk, finance), making investment more accessible and ROI faster.