In our Spotlight on Success series, Andrew Ganey, CAE of Ruiz Foods, and co-source partner Dan Riebesell, Risk Consulting Director at RSM, share how their geographically distributed team leverages AuditBoard’s connected risk platform to collaborate seamlessly while keeping ahead of risk.

This 2023 update builds on our earlier 2021 Spotlight on Success interview with Ganey about his decision to implement AuditBoard at Ruiz Foods (see below for original video) to showcase the continued success of internal audit at this family-owned provider of America’s top frozen Mexican food brand, El Monterey. Hear how Ganey and his RSM co-sourced team are partnering to drive significant value for the business by:

• Leveraging AuditBoard’s OpsAudit and RiskOversight solutions together to streamline collaboration across a co-sourced team.
• Incorporating RSM’s subject matter expertise across supply chain, cybersecurity, third-party risk management, and more to build a strong internal audit program. 
• Staying ahead of a changing risk environment to ensure that this family-owned company has a strong foundation for continued growth for the next generations. 

Tell us a little about your role at Ruiz Foods, and how working with RSM as your co-source partner has provided the subject matter expertise to navigate a complicated and complex landscape.

“I’m Andrew Ganey, the Chief Audit Executive, Director of Internal Audit with Ruiz Foods, which is a frozen and refrigerated retail Mexican food company. We actually do not have any audit staff within our department. We have made the decision to fully co-source that relationship with RSM.” - Andrew Ganey, CAE of Ruiz Foods

“At RSM, we really look to lead with industry and deliver by line of business. I focus on consumer products, so I was brought in to talk with Ruiz and their internal audit department when they were looking to co-source to show how we could bring value — whether it’s supply chain, cybersecurity, third-party risk management. We’re able to access a deep bench of specialized subject matter experts to help build a strong audit program for them.” - Dan Riebesell, Risk Consulting Director, RSM

How has leveraging AuditBoard’s connected risk platform helped you collaborate with your distributed RSM co-source partners?

“AuditBoard factored into this transformation, pretty much from day one. It was our solution that we implemented within a few months of me being there removing and replacing an old on-premise tool. AuditBoard has helped me collaborate with my co-source team — the RSM team — throughout the country. It’s made collaboration easy, and it’s also made working with management easy.” - Andrew Ganey, CAE of Ruiz Foods 

How has the relationship between internal audit at Ruiz Foods and RSM helped add value and keep ahead of the volatile risk environment in the consumer products space? 

“What we’ve noticed over the last two years, and obviously through the pandemic, is change is inevitable and it’s always happening. So, we’re looking at emerging risks and emerging factors, and trying to address those and get ahead of the curve on those so that we can bring that value to Ruiz.” - Dan Riebesell, Risk Consulting Director, RSM

“We’re really looking to drive value to continue to build this family-owned company, which has very close ties and is a historic business. We’re really looking to make sure that we’re addressing all of the risks so that it can continue on for the next four generations. I know that we’re contributing to making sure that business and all the fundamentals stay strong and continue to improve, so that it can continue to to grow and meet its target objectives over the next 2, 5, 10 years and into the future.” - Andrew Ganey, CAE of Ruiz Foods 

2021 Ruiz Foods Success Story

In a 2021 testimonial, hear Andrew Ganey, the Director of Internal Audit and Chief Audit Executive for Ruiz Foods, shares how implementing AuditBoard’s connected risk platform was a top priority for him in his new role when looking to streamline and improve processes for a remote team. Ruiz Foods sees AuditBoard as not just a software solution, but also a strong partner, as well as how the fully-remote team: 

• Quickly onboarded the intuitive software with little team training, reducing administrative efforts.
• Leverages a single system of record with the business to save time and money. 
• Uses real-time data to better engage with executive stakeholders.

Tell us about your journey to implement an audit and risk management solution at Ruiz Foods.

“Ruiz Foods is going through a period of rapid change and growth right now. When I started in my role in early 2021, one of the first questions I asked was about audit technology. I used AuditBoard for about five years when I was with Post. The Ruiz team had another audit tool at the time — a lot of our IT systems were still on-premises, and the tool hadn’t really been used for the past year. I immediately worked with our CFO and our Audit Chair to move towards a technology partner. We started the RFP process with AuditBoard top of mind, but evaluated a few other tools to make sure AuditBoard was still a fit. It was — by miles — still our top choice”

What was your vision for how technology could improve how you do your work? 

“I wanted to make sure that I’d be able to give real-time insights to our C-suite and board immediately on the key issues we were finding in our audits. I also wanted to make sure that I had visibility into what our team was producing, knowing that I was remote and they were remote for the vast majority of our audit work. I wanted to make sure we had a single source where we were all working as we really started to ramp up our audit activities throughout the course of the year. I obviously wanted to make sure that translated into savings for the organization — time, administrative effort, and just ease of use for our business.”

What early wins have you seen in the months since implementing AuditBoard?

“We recently finished both our implementation for OpsAudit, which I really needed for the internal audit department, and the RiskOversight module for our enterprise risk assessment, kicking off next year. The biggest thing we realized right away was being able to get all of our open issues from prior audits into the tool, even from before my time, allowing us to see and effectively manage issue remediation. We’ve found in the last four months with AuditBoard our issue closure rate is accelerating.”

“We’re saving time, which is money — especially in a co-source environment. We’re about nine months in and already seeing benefits from an issue follow-up perspective, and being able to shift that time into other resources.” 

What feedback have you received from business users during the adoption process?

“Feedback from our business users has been excellent. The ease of use has shown itself in we’re able to have them use single sign on, and they’re able to get in there without much training, because it’s simple to understand. The adoption rate has been great. We haven’t had any concerns or complaints or questions. We really didn’t spend any time training them either, which was the best part. The lack of the administrative time that we have to spend as a small department — that’s remote as well — has been one of the best features.”

How has RiskOversight helped you engage with senior stakeholders?

“Our purchase of AuditBoard originally stemmed from an operational place — I needed OpsAudit in place to be able to manage the audits that we were delivering on and get results in a more timely and efficient manner. By linking to other modules like RiskOversight, you start to really bring the business into the fold. They start to understand some of these real-time issues more broadly than what a presentation might show. We’ve now got our General Counsel involved. We’ve got our CEO, CFO, and even our audit chairs in the platform. They’re starting to be able to see this data as we get it in a real-time format, and ask questions about it more quickly than during each quarter’s audit committee.”

What has the collaboration and engagement been like with the AuditBoard team?

“Leading a new internal audit department, I knew I needed a strong partner in my audit solution for my overall risk assessment and risk monitoring process. I knew that was AuditBoard, from my five years of experience with them beforehand. I knew that the business was also going to gain value from that partnership. I really think of AuditBoard as a partner, and not just a software vendor, because the collaboration with the entire team has helped us reach new heights and achieve things that I don’t think I would’ve been able to do otherwise.”