corporate business

Many business leaders have looked at the crisis in the financial services sector and thought "but that's them; it doesn't hold lessons outside financial services; it doesn't apply to us.
We beg to differ.

CORPORATE SECTORS

PUBLIC SECTOR

What the financial crisis has shown us is that assuming that risk has been managed because it has been reported upon is very, very dangerous. And yet most corporate risk management practice is geared directly at giving the appearance of a solution.

Risk management underperforms and is not highly regarded by senior executives and board members alike, even though they say it is. But the proof of their indifference is in what, in financial services parlance, is the 'use test' - do they use the information in their decision-making. And the answer is a resounding 'no'.

The simple reality, revealed now clearly in the financial services sector, is that risk management needs to become more professional, more focused and more relevant. Risk management can no longer simply be allowed to default to being another, rather passive form of assurance, an adjunct to audit routines.

Instead, risk management needs to focus on ensuring that the firm can identify and respond to major crises as they emerge; that the firm is resilient enough to withstand major shocks and that the firn doesn't 'dig its own grave' with mismanaged communication.

At the corporate level, risk management functions need to support corporate executives and the board to help the firm to understand its appetite for and tolerance of risk and, where indicated, to assume more risk and manage it appropriately.

If that sounds like your agenda too, call us - we can help you to make it a reality.

KEY BUSINESS ISSUE

Implementing ERM 

  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to

repeat it.

George Santayana

ERM is a bit of a mystery to many. In reality, ERM is an integration of all the other disciplines of risk in the firm. It starts with capital and ends with people.

KEY BUSINESS ISSUE

Tackling risk appetite

The firm's risk appetite is about its desire to take on risk. You cannot understand risk appetite without understanding target rates of return.

KEY BUSINESS ISSUE

Governance and risk

Risk has structural, analytical and behavioural elements; to be effective, governance processes must address all these areas.

KEY BUSINESS ISSUE

Risk culture: for better or for worse

Unlike a process, you cannot establish a culture, you can only influence it. Nothing is more important than how decisions are really made.

KEY BUSINESS ISSUE