Optimization vs. Resilience: The Hidden Costs of Efficiency in High-Growth Operations

This article highlights how aggressive optimization for efficiency, while initially beneficial, can introduce significant, unacknowledged risks that lead to operational failures and financial inaccuracies. For internal audit and assurance professionals, this underscores the critical need to integrate risk assessments into efficiency initiatives from the outset, moving beyond traditional sample-based auditing to population-level reviews, and ensuring that risk appetite frameworks actively inform strategic decisions, not just constrain them.