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

ERM and Strategy

May 11, 2016

Case Studies on Integration of ERM with Strategy

NC State University's ERM Initiative is pleased to release a new thought paper, Integration of ERM with Strategy, that highlights three case study illustrations of how organizations have successfully integrated their enterprise-wide risk management efforts with their value creating initiatives. These case studies are based on real life examples of how companies have attempted to better integrate their ERM process within their strategic planning process.

Apr 22, 2016

Taking a Strategic Approach to Emerging Risks

Bonnie V. Hancock, Executive Director of North Carolina State University's ERM Initiative, addresses techniques that might simplify the process of prioritizing risk.

Jan 20, 2016

A Risk Manager’s Role in Strategic Leadership

A misalignment of risk priorities often exists between the risk manager and the executive decision makers. What can risk managers do to help them establish their significance and contribution to the organization? As in almost any emerging field, risk management requires effective communication and robust contribution from all parties in order to extract the most value for the organization.

Oct 1, 2015

Value Creation through Risk Management

Many companies have come to realize that risk management serves more than just a compliance function. In the ever-changing risk environment we live in today, risk management also serves to add value to the company. After conducting their Global Governance, Risk and Compliance Survey, EY published a white paper with a three-step approach to risk management.

Jun 16, 2014

2014 Research Report on Current State of Enterprise Risk Management

The 2014 Research Report on Enterprise Risk Management provides insights from 446 executives across various industries, exploring the maturity of ERM processes in their organizations.

Jan 1, 2014

The Importance of Integrating Risk Management with Strategy

A recent thought paper, 10 Lessons in Integrating Risk Management with Strategy by Protiviti uses examples of both corporate failures and successes to learn what helped those that survived and thrived reach different outcomes than those that failed and disappeared. The thought paper provides lessons learned as well as tools and techniques executives can use to improve their company’s chances of surviving and thriving in an ever-changing world. The thought paper finds that surviving and thriving companies were able to respond to a pending crisis because they integrate risk into their strategic discussions, allowing them to react quickly enough to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

Apr 1, 2013

Five Basics to Managing Innovation Risk

As organizations seek growth through value creation, they often invest in research and development to generate innovations that can propel significant changes and new demand in the marketplace. In the rush to capitalize on the benefits of emerging innovations, organizations often rush to the market based without thinking through the limitations in the models upon which they have based their decision to act. Said differently, innovation carries risks that need to adequately evaluated. A recent Harvard Business Review article by Nobel prize winner, Robert Merton proposes that businesses should adopt five rules of thumb before haphazardly introducing innovations into the market.

Apr 1, 2013

Crowdsourcing, A Tool to Tackle Emerging Strategic Risks

Organizations are turning to “crowdsourcing” as part of their innovation strategy where they leverage the knowledge of “the crowd” to identify emerging trends and opportunities. A recent article in _Harvard Business Review_ highlights crowdsourcing as a problem solving technique. We use that as a springboard to explore how crowdsourcing might be used to leverage the collective talent of the crowd to help organizations deter or manage emerging risks that may affect their strategic success. Crowdsourcing may be a tool that risk leaders can include in their risk identification toolkits.

Mar 1, 2013

Strategies to Manage Risks of Sudden Competitor Disruptions

The introduction of new business models such as cloud computing, apps for model devices, instant information sharing, and free trial of service offerings have suddenly disrupted business models for a number of organizations. The way in which disruptions to an organization’s core business now emerges is often different from how new competitors have emerged in the past, which thereby calls for new ways to manage the risk of disruptive innovations. A recent Harvard Business Review article addresses these issues by focusing on what has changed in this context and how risk managers can better plan for the unknown. The cliché “time is of the essence” could never be more true for planning ahead to mitigate the impact of major market disruptions in what the authors call “big bang” disruptions. They offer strategies and identification techniques to help managers pursue planning for a disruptive environment.

Dec 21, 2012

Making the Connection Between Strategy-setting and Risk

Organizations invest a great deal of effort in developing and executing their business strategies. Even so, winning business models are all-too-often subject to catastrophic failures in the blink of an eye. Didn't these companies see trouble coming? The answer: probably not, but only because executive managers did not think hard enough about risk during the strategy-setting process. This white paper from Protiviti Inc. explores the concept of strategic risk and provides an approach for incorporating risk assessment into the process of strategy-setting. By combining these processes, managers will be better equipped to make decisions for their organizations now and in the unknown future.