BorgWarner (NYSE: BWA) Success Story

About BorgWarner’s

BorgWarner is a Michigan‑based Fortune 500 automotive technology company focused on propulsion and e‑mobility solutions, generating about US$15 billion in annual revenue. The company operates across North America, Europe, and Asia.

The internal audit department includes 20+ professionals, the vast majority being CPAs and business-process specialists, supported by a small IT-audit function. The audit organization reports to the finance leadership and presents quarterly to the Audit Committee.

The Goal: Shifting from Compliance Function to Trusted Advisors

BorgWarner’s audit leadership had three primary goals to elevate their program’s strategic impact:

Optimize Team Efficiency by automating compliance testing to focus on emerging risks and value-added advisory projects.
Improve Risk Coverage by moving from sample-based testing to targeted, full-population analytics.
Enhance Audit’s Role by embedding data analytics into the audit process to deliver deeper insights and strengthen its position as a trusted business partner.

The team’s objective was to reverse its audit plan from 60% compliance and 40% advisory to a model where advisory work takes center stage.

As Mike McDonald explains, internal audit “needs to morph into an advisory function” while remaining independent and objective.

📻 Hear more about Mike McDonald's perspective in the "From Compliance to Trusted Advisor" webinar (recorded October 2025) or listening to his episode of The Audit Podcast, "How BorgWarner’s IA Drives Value Beyond Compliance".

The Solution: Targeted, Automated Analytics with Supervizor

To bypass the slow, resource-intensive process of building data analytics internally, BorgWarner turned to Supervizor. They implemented the Supervizor P2P module to rapidly deploy automated testing across 20 company codes in their SAP environment.

With over 350 pre-built routines and AI-powered analytics, Supervizor automates key tests like duplicate invoice detection and other Key Risk Indicators. Smart prioritization and filtering drastically reduces the noise, ranking alerts by materiality and risk level so auditors can focus on what truly matters.

Deployment: Live in Weeks, Not Months

To deliver immediate insights, the deployment began with an initial analysis using a manual data upload, with the first results produced in just a few days. Following this successful proof of value, a full API connection to SAP was established within a few weeks to scale the solution, bringing the remaining company codes online and activating continuous monitoring for ongoing assurance.

The Supervizor team worked closely with BorgWarner to fine-tune KRIs and exclude false positive patterns, ensuring the analytics reflected the true operational reality the business.

“What I'm most impressed with Supervizor is their speed to delivery and their attention to detail. From a customer support perspective, they're there, answering your questions right away. When we identified nuances within the analytics, we went back to the Supervizor team to say, ‘Hey, we need to include this population or exclude this one.’ Their ability to customize the data is phenomenal.”

Watch the full webinar replay to hear Mike describes the implementation experience.

Results: Proven ROI and a Strategic Partnership

With Supervizor, BorgWarner achieved clear gains in precision, efficiency, and financial impact.

By automating P2P testing across 20 geographies, the team immediately uncovered control weaknesses and process gaps. This data-driven approach identified direct cash-recovery opportunities, proving the platform’s ROI within the first six months of the license.

Supervizor’s intelligent filtering and risk-based scoring eliminated thousands of low-risk alerts. This allowed the audit team to stop wasting time on manual investigations and instead focus its expertise on analyzing high-risk exceptions and their root causes.

Strengthened Stakeholder Trust

With the time saved from manual testing, the audit team increases its capacity for high-profile operational audits and strategic management requests. This shift solidifies IA reputation as trusted business partners who enhance operations and support strategic initiatives.

A Lasting Transformation to a Smarter, Data-Driven Audit Function

BorgWarner’s journey illustrates a clear path forward for modern internal audit teams:

Automate to Accelerate: Use analytics and AI to streamline compliance, freeing up capacity for strategic advisory work.
Target the Right Risks: Apply intelligent detection and prioritization to focus on the highest-risk populations instead of drowning in data.
Become a Data-Driven Partner: Reshape audit’s perception from a "compliance police" to a trusted advisor that provides valuable, data-backed insights.