How DTCC Built Data Literacy Across their Internal Audit Department

Challenge: A Traditional Audit Function Seeking Analytics Momentum

When Arpit Shah, head of data analytics and innovation at DTCC internal audit, assessed his department's analytics maturity, he found that while they had evolved over the decades from paper trails to Excel, they hadn't fully embraced modern analytics tools.

"Audit traditionally has been less digital in nature," Arpit explained. "We definitely have gone from paper trails and analyzing and reviewing those to now using tools like Excel to actually look at electronic data and audit that. But there's certainly an opportunity to adopt more digital behaviors and processes."

The challenges extended beyond just technology adoption:

Inconsistent methodologies: Basic activities like creating samples from datasets were handled differently by each auditor. Most used Excel's random function for sampling, which did the job but lacked standardization. Without standardized sampling approaches, audit findings were harder to defend when challenged and difficult for other auditors to reproduce.

No structured training: While some senior leaders had technical skills, there was no formal program to transfer these capabilities across the department to enable audit analytics at scale.

Limited visibility: The department had no way to measure actual usage of analytics tools or track which audit work products incorporated data analytics. Without measurement, it was difficult to set analytics adoption goals or demonstrate progress in analytics skill development.

Solution: A People-First, Structured Approach to Data Literacy with KNIME

DTCC’s internal audit department approached data literacy as a three-phase journey, focusing on people, processes, and the right incentives rather than top-down mandates.

Phase 1: Building Foundation Peer Learning

The first strategy leaned on the general auditor's existing technical skills. He held small sessions with staff, demonstrating KNIME and showing how it could automate audit processes.

DTCC hired a dedicated community lead focused solely on analytics tool adoption, working directly with auditors to help them understand available tools.

The breakthrough came from a peer-driven approach. In November, Arpit launched an initiative to call out colleagues on Microsoft Teams to get certified and invite them to nominate two others.

"Within three months, from November 29th to February 27th, 80% of our department obtained their KNIME Level 1 certification," Arpit shared. "This is probably the single fastest drive towards KNIME Level 1 certification that we've ever had."

Phase 2: Embedding Analytics Skills into Standard Processes

With 80% of staff certified, the department needed to address the remaining 20%, ensure new hires developed data skills, and measure actual analytics tool usage. They built a formal data literacy training program with three tracks:

• Conversational: Required for all staff within 6-9 months of being hired, focusing on common data vocabulary
• Literate: Also required for all staff, including mandatory KNIME Level 1 certification within 9-12 months
• Competent: Planned for power users, requiring KNIME Level 2 certification

This ensured that every new hire had a clear path and deadline for achieving analytics competency.

To measure usage, the KNIME community lead reviewed every audit work product to identify which ones incorporated data and analytics. This revealed 24% of audit work products used these methods, indicating the department was meeting its three-year adoption targets.

The department launched a Digital Champion Leaderboard to drive continued engagement. Auditors submitted entries for approved activities such as using analytics in audits to increase efficiency or earning advanced certifications. Approved submissions earned points and virtual badges, with quarterly physical awards for top performers.

"We found that when you institute competition, you get innovation, you get out-of-the-box thinking," Arpit noted.

Phase 3: Scaling Infrastructure and Creating Reusable Resources

DTCC implemented KNIME Business Hub proactively. This ensured infrastructure was ready as demands for scheduling, collaboration, and capacity increased.

Enterprise Data Integration: DTCC easily connected KNIME to their Snowflake cloud data platform with KNIME’s built-in Snowflake connector, enabling data processing directly within Snowflake rather than moving data out. They now process 10 billion transactions annually, a scale up from 1 billion transactions, helping auditors review more data.

Standardization with Data Apps: The team created and deployed their first interactive KNIME data app to address sampling inconsistency. The app allows auditors to upload data, input parameters, and receive standardized samples, providing a uniform approach to a core audit activity. This standardization strengthens the defensibility of audit findings and ensures results can be easily reproduced by any auditor.

Automation of Repetitive Tasks: Ready-to-use KNIME data apps to automate common tasks like merging files sped up work for auditors. 

KNIME's Open Source Advantage

DTCC was able to scale data literacy quickly because all training materials, certification programs, and community resources were also available at no cost, eliminating the need to create custom training content.

"Take a minute and recognize how much value we're all getting out of the fact that KNIME Analytics Platform is free and open source," Arpit emphasized. "All the training is free and open source. You can get your KNIME Level 1 certification and share it on LinkedIn, which is a transferable skill set, also free."

The open source nature also enabled an unexpected benefit: auditors with access to Microsoft Copilot could ask for help designing KNIME workflows and received detailed guidance, links to reusable workflows on KNIME Community Hub, and offers to generate ready-to-import workflows, all because KNIME's documentation is freely accessible.

Results: Department-Wide Data Literacy in Internal Audit

DTCC's systematic approach with KNIME delivered measurable outcomes across increasing data literacy and analytics usage in audit:

Complete audit department upskilled in analytics: 100% of audit staff who joined before January 1st were trained in analytics and KNIME Level 1 certified, establishing consistent baseline analytics capabilities across the audit department.

Measurable usage: Regular review of audit work products showed 24% incorporating data and analytics, aligned with strategic targets.  Incorporating analytics helped auditors look at more of the data, find patterns faster, and support findings with clearer, more reliable evidence.

Process standardization and automation: The sampling data app provided consistent methodology for a core audit activity. This standardization makes audit results more defensible, more consistent, and easy for any auditor to reproduce. Additional micro-utility data apps automated repetitive work for auditors such as merging files, saving time.

Operational scale: The KNIME and Snowflake integration increased capacity from analyzing about 1 billion to 10 billion transactions per year. This allowed auditors to review more data, identify issues more reliably, and support findings with stronger evidence.

Organic advocacy: Auditors became advocates for analytics tools, discussing KNIME with audit clients who were other DTCC business units. This led to demos and expanded analytics adoption beyond internal audit in DTCC.

For organizations considering similar initiatives, Arpit offers straightforward advice: "Start small and start now. What's your turtle on a skateboard moment? Realize that true change is driven by people. You do have to think about the people, not just the technology, because they are really the part of the transformation journey."

Learn more about KNIME Business Hub and how it can help your organization or schedule a demo with our customer care team to see how it works in practice.