Final answer:
Internal and external auditors, along with specialized assurance professionals, are the ones who most likely employ data analytics to provide assurance in companies. These tools help in ensuring the effectiveness of business processes, the integrity of financial information, and in offering deeper insights for informed decisions.
Step-by-step explanation:
Who Utilizes Data Analytics for Assurance in Companies
In the context of business operations and management, those who are most likely to use data analytics to provide assurance for a company include internal auditors, external auditors, and specialized assurance professionals. Internal auditors use data analytics to perform continuous auditing and monitoring, ensuring that business processes are functioning as intended and that the company's risk management is effective. External auditors, especially from major accounting firms, increasingly rely on data analytics tools to test financial data and to provide deeper insights into the financial health of the company, adding value to the traditional audit process. Moreover, assurance professionals may focus on data quality and integrity, which are critical in making informed business decisions. Experts utilize these tools not only to confirm their initial hypothesis but also to uncover any discrepancies, which often leads to a closer scrutiny of the data, akin to point 6 mentioned.