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Poole College of Management
Enterprise Risk Management Initiative

Emerging Risks

Sep 1, 2015

Integrating Sustainability with Enterprise Risk Management

Sustainability policies have a meaningful role in managing risk, and can also promote faster growth. Have you ever heard the saying ‘you have to spend money to make money?’ This remains true for investments in sustainability and risk management - yes, investing money in sustainability and risk management will more than pay for itself. A white paper authored by James Lam and Frances Quinn and published by Workiva highlights the role and benefits sustainability plays in enterprise risk management and explains how to successfully integrate sustainability into the risk management framework.

Feb 1, 2015

2015 Report on the Current State of Enterprise Risk Management: Update of Trends and Opportunities

Discover the 2015 Report on the Current State of Enterprise Risk Management from NC State's ERM Initiative and the AICPA. The report, drawing from 1,093 executives' responses, highlights ERM maturity, integration with strategy, and key opportunities for enhancing risk oversight.

Sep 1, 2014

Trends that are Shaping the Next Fifty Years

Learn how emerging market growth, technological advancements, and aging populations are transforming global business strategy. Explore the key forces driving these changes and their implications for senior executives.

Jun 16, 2014

2014 Research Report on Current State of Enterprise Risk Management

Explore insights from the NC State ERM Initiative's latest report, developed in partnership with the AICPA, which examines the maturity of enterprise risk management processes across various organizations and highlights opportunities for better integration with strategic planning.

Apr 1, 2014

How Global Changes Can Affect the Business Environment

As organizations develop their strategic plans, their horizons are often only looking out over the next two-to-three years. While staying focused on the “here and now” is important, failure to look at broader trends of how the world may be shifting may cause some boards and executive teams to wake up some day in the future to discover their strategies are no longer viable. To help organizations consider how shifts may be on the horizon, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has recently published information about five megatrends that are already changing the business environment. A megatrend is a change on a global scale that is often verified with factual data. In the past few years PwC has noticed that its clients are identifying and changing their strategies because of these megatrends. This article explains each of the five megatrends identified and then highlights possible effects of each trend.

Nov 1, 2013

An Insight into the Benefits of Risk Maturity

Aon’s 2013 Risk Maturity Index Report reveals how mature risk management correlates with better financial performance, including higher stock prices, return on equity, and enhanced resiliency.

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.

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.

Feb 13, 2013

Top Risks on Horizon for 2013

Explore the top risks identified by corporate leaders for 2013, including regulatory scrutiny, global economic conditions, political instability, and cybersecurity threats, as detailed in a Protiviti and NC State ERM report.

Dec 1, 2012

Managing the Risk of Disruptive Innovation

Organizations often find themselves surprised by a competitor's announcement of a new innovation. Such announcements can be hugely disruptive, and they hit the competitive environment in many forms, such as a new revolutionary business model, a completely new technology, or a new spin on an existing product or service. A December 2012 article in Harvard Business Review discusses the threat of disruptive innovation. A new product offering or a novel business model from a competitor is enough to upend any existing business and change the face of a particular market indefinitely. However, organizations can manage the risk of disruptive innovations by being proactive in regards to evaluating their own business models and those of competitors. In this HBR article, Wessel and Christensen present their approach for assessing and strategically managing the risk of disruption.