How Quebecor Media Uses Resolver for Internal Audit and Compliance

The Challenge

If you had to support internal audit and compliance for all business units for one of the biggest media companies in the province, what would you do?

The Solution

Christophe Hervier, Quebecor Senior Internal Auditor and Integrated Enterprise Risk Management Advisor, is no stranger to audit and internal controls. As a young man at the age of 20, Christophe studied hotel business management in Nice, France. As a prerequisite of graduating from that program, he had to do a work assignment outside of France. Christophe decided to go to Montreal, a city to which he had a connection via his father. He completed his work assignment, received a job offer and visa to stay in the country. He stayed in the hospitality business for five years. Progressing to become the youngest financial controller in North America. All without an accounting degree. Christophe is a big believer that you never stop learning. He went back to “b-school” Receiving first is Bachelor degree, then his CGA designation, then his MBA; all while working full-time. A 13 year process.

Christophe then joined Nortel, the country’s largest telecommunications company in an Internal Control role. This happened right around the time that Sarbanes-Oxley came into being.

Nortel eventually folded and Christophe moved onto other roles including Molson Coors Brewing Company, the country’s largest beer maker and distributor. It was in his Internal Audit role at Molson that Christophe met Guy Desrochers whom he eventually joined at Quebecor.

Internal Audit at Quebecor

Quebecor’s audit group is 17 people. The group has two roles; Audit and ICFR compliance — or as they refer to it internally, SOX — with the majority of the team allocated to internal audit. Guy and Christophe had worked with Resolver as early as 2007 while at MolsonCoors. They brought Resolver in to help manage Internal Audit and SOX applications at Quebecor. The application supports audit for all business units. Before Resolver, Quebecor was reliant on spreadsheets to manage the process. There are about 20 employees using Resolver. As part of this, they extend the application to light users and external auditors.

Implementation Process

Quebecor was Christophe’s second implementation with Resolver. “I already had great familiarity with the tool, it just took a little refresher,” says Christophe. “We knew exactly what we wanted to do. With Resolver, once you learn the framework, the tool is easy to apply”. All it, the Internal Audit implementation took just over one month.

“With Resolver, whether you like it or not, it forces compliance, and does a good job of it,” says Christophe. “It is an affordable option for Internal Audit and SOX, and we like that the tool can be extended to manage risk.” Christophe also appreciates the ability to make changes to the configuration. Quebecor is active with selling off and acquiring business units, and as such the team frequently faces new mandates. “Change happens every few weeks at Qubecor and with Resolver it is easy to make changes.”