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Poole College of Management
Enterprise Risk Management Initiative

Risk Identification and Assessment

Oct 26, 2015

A Chief Compliance Officer’s Role in Risk Management

Risks, rules, and regulations: Can today's chief compliance officers keep up? It is commonly known that a company's ability to assess and manage risks to meet stakeholder expectations may ultimately determine the success or failure of an organization. Deloitte and Compliance Week, in their collaborative efforts, have administered a survey to annually assess corporate America's ability to keep up with these rising expectations and to address issues and concerns resulting from current trends.

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.

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.

Sep 1, 2013

Preparing for a Black Swan Event

Black Swan events are traditionally thought to be rare, random, and high-impact events, but recent history suggests that Black Swan events are happening more frequently while maintaining their unpredictability and catastrophic characteristics. A recent thought paper by Ernst & Young explains the benefit of preparing for a Black Swan event, identifies broad-based principles to implement prior to an event, and describes protocols to follow when responding to the event. Due to a Black Swan’s unpredictability, a flexible and broad-based approach to prepare and respond to such an event is necessary to mitigate its impact and facilitate a speedy recovery. The paper provides valuable insights to help your enterprise prepare for the unexpected.

Jun 19, 2013

ERP Implementation Risk: Managing Sources of Project Delays and Other Risk

Over the past two decades, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have allowed managers to utilize software to integrate information about projects across the enterprise. These systems are designed to integrate internal and external information, enhance the flow of communication and decision-making across an enterprise, and focus on business processes and functions. However, integrating information about operations all across an enterprise to make information more accessible and flow via an ERP system presents a number of significant risks. If issues arise at inopportune moments, they are compounded due to the interrelated nature of an ERP system. Protiviti developed a whitepaper that identifies and reiterates the importance of mitigating these risks to reduce post-implementation project costs.

Jun 11, 2013

Focusing on Property Risk Management

Risk events such as fires, adverse weather conditions, and terrorist attacks can have devastating effects on an organization's facilities and physical infrastructure. If ineffectively managed, core operations can be paralyzed, assets can be destroyed, and key IP may be compromised. In May 2013, Advisen Ltd. conducted a large survey of risk managers and property brokers in order to gain perspective on the status of property risk management efforts among businesses operating in the United States and abroad. The survey asked questions around two main themes: 1) what are companies doing, if anything, to specifically manage threats to the physical property and resources of the business, and 2) what are the key characteristics and practices of successful property risk managers? This white paper provides an overview of the survey and its results, which may provide useful benchmarking data for risk leaders.

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.

Oct 1, 2012

Applying “Big Data” to Risk Management

“Big data” is quickly building a following as a useful tool for helping managers make decisions. But what exactly is big data, and is its use actually beneficial to a business? This article from Harvard Business Review answers these two questions and more. The authors explain why digital data is perhaps more useful than ever before, and also provide real-life examples of companies using big data to make better decisions. The article also discusses five ingredients that are critical to using big data successfully in any company. Ultimately, big data could provide managers with insights into the risks facing their organizations.

Jun 1, 2012

Categorizing Risks for More Effective Risk Management

Organizations often employ a rules-based model to manage risk; however history suggests that such an approach may not be an effective way to manage all types of risk. This Harvard Business Review article provides a framework for thinking about risk management that is centered on breaking an organization’s risks into three categories. The authors demonstrate, through real-world examples, how each category of risk is best managed through certain types of risk management mechanisms. Each of these mechanisms plays a role in strengthening the organization’s overall risk management function.