Skip to main content
Poole College of Management
Enterprise Risk Management Initiative

ERM Fundamentals

Apr 29, 2022

Elevating Value of Leading-Edge ERM: Highlights from the April 22, 2022 ERM Roundtable Summit

The sharing of insights and experiences among ERM leaders continues to help advance the strategic value of ERM programs among organizations. Fostering thought leadership on strategically focused risk management is a core mission of the ERM Initiative at NC State University. The “golden nuggets” shared by speakers at the April 22, 2022 ERM Roundtable Summit covered a variety of topics related to advancing best practices in enterprise risk management (ERM). We are providing this high-level summary so others can benefit by what was shared in each of the six sessions. 

Feb 23, 2022

New Case Study: Using Scenario Planning to Consider Emerging Risks

Recent events have highlighted the importance of planning for an uncertain future.  The ERM Initiative is excited to release this new case study “A Look into The Future with Scenario Planning: A Survey of ERM Practices” that looks at ways multiple organizations use scenario planning to address uncertainty and identify the risks and opportunities that may arise under different conditions.  

Feb 9, 2022

Strengthening Enterprise Agility for a Crisis: Lessons Learned

The COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges and necessary changes for all organizations. To support rapid change, many entities adopted agile business practices. A team of experts from McKinsey and the Harvard Business School analyzed the experiences of agile or partially agile companies during the crisis and provide insights around which elements of their operating models proved most useful in practice. To carry forward the lessons learned by agile organizations and to support success in the "new normal," the experts present a three-step guide to fully embracing an operating-model shift to agile practices.

Feb 8, 2022

How to Adapt to Thrive in the New Normal

Shocks like economic recessions and global pandemics can result in long-lasting behavioral changes that impact businesses. The Covid-19 pandemic is the most recent reminder that companies prepared to reassess their opportunities, adapt their business models and reallocate investments amid a crisis are the winners.

Feb 8, 2022

Imagining Unimaginable Risks

Risks take a variety of forms, many of which companies can proactively manage. But novel risks are much more difficult to predict and plan for and they may seem improbable, emerge from a perfect storm of events, or are unprecedentedly massive. In their 2020 Harvard Business Review article, "The Risks You Can't Foresee," authors Robert S. Kaplan, Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard and Annette Mikes define novel risks and then describe how to detect and respond to them to mitigate the risk impact on the business.

Feb 8, 2022

Six Practices to Future-Proof Your Company

As companies rebuild their workforces in the aftermath of Covid-19, they must move into the digital age to future-proof their operations and give them a competitive advantage. A recent Harvard Business Review article, "Future-Proofing Your Organization," draws on research by Bain & Company involving more than 300 large firms in every sector of the global economy. The authors identify six recommended practices for companies to follow as they recover from the pandemic to create technology-enabled workforces for future success.

Feb 8, 2022

Board Oversight of ESG and Diversity Risks

PwC's 2021 Annual Corporate Directors Survey gauges the views of public company directors across the United States. The survey results reveal the significant impact of the social, environmental and economic pressures companies have faced in recent years, including new risks for boards to address. The PwC report also sheds light on the changes boards are making in response to the dynamic environment.

Dec 9, 2021

REPORT: Executive Perspectives on Top Risks for 2022 & 2031

Executive Perspectives on Top Risks is an annual survey report that assesses the concerns of 1,453 board members and executives globally.

Nov 18, 2021

Looking for a better way to report risk information to management?

The ERM Initiative is pleased to provide this new case study, “Management Dashboards: Visualizing Enterprise Risks”, that illustrates a number of different ways organizations are embedding risk insights into management’s dashboard reports.  The report was prepared by graduate students in the Poole College of Management at North Carolina State University based on input they received from 19 companies covering 9 industries including healthcare, financial services, pharmaceuticals, utilities, and wholesale/retail trades. 
Expert ERM Interview

Oct 6, 2021

New Resources: ERM Tools & Techniques

The ERM Initiative interviews John Fraser, Rob Quail and Betty Simkins about the 2nd edition of Enterprise Risk Management: Today’s Leading Research and Best Practices for Tomorrow’s Executives.