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If 2008 was the year of corporate fallouts, 2009 was definitely the year of corporate makeover with a strong focus on “Risk management”. This and risk related terms were widely searched for on Google and these words appeared across many business publications and newspapers. But does talking about risk management actually translate into effective risk management. We believe not, because just like everyone talks about Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), little has been done about it. Even if organisations are working on ERM, there is little progress. In order to make risk management effective, companies need to take concrete steps. The following are 10 steps to effective steps that can be implemented in 2010. 1. Share risk management articles across the Senior and Middle management. Today, there is a lot of public material, opinion, and columns etc that relate to risk management practices, advisory aspects and factual information. These materials are the best way to create an awareness of risk management across the organisation and since these articles are written by risk experts who have often worked for consulting organisations, you are actually getting top quality material free of cost. 2. Visit websites of top consulting companies and download for free; White papers, risk management surveys –Again, there is a lot of information available from top consulting firms that was recently created specifically after the 2008 debacle. These articles condense industry practices and present a view of how peer organisations are taking risk management. Their challenges are also known when one reads these surveys. 3. Hire a Risk management / risk consultant – All said and done, hiring the consultant is the fastest and usually the cheapest way to get things done. Admittedly, organisations and their employees don’t have time for such projects and unless external help is sought, things will simply not move. 4. Hire the most ethical staff, not just the best experts in the field– Best risk management practices start with the beat 5. Improve the Policy structure – The top most effective tool for better risk management is policy structure that is approved by the board. You should try to add it to the policy if you want the whole organisation to comply with any requirement. Compliance to policies is closely audited by internal audit and exceptions are taken to the ACB, RMC and the Board. 6. Empower risk management and internal audit departments – give more powers to the entities that act as quality inspectors. This empowerment, if allotted in the right dose can have immense impact. 7. Take stringent action when a fraud occurs – there is no excuse for committing a fraud. And fraudsters should not be let go without any action. Many companies try to ignore the fraud in order to avoid reputational damage, and other complications. We believe that occurrence of frauds should be widely discussed in the organisation and actions taken should be publicized. This will create a fear in the minds of the employees and hopefully act as a deterrent. Of couse, the case has to be properly handled and not every fraud should be dealt with in the manner stated. 8. Avoid fire fighting initiatives. – Usually companies react to risk events once they have occurred. This is usually too late. Instead, companies should strengthen risk management at the foundation level and ensure that the overall risk management structure is stonrg from all aspects. This will ensure that the framework works as intended and risk events are proactively managed and known ahead of time. When losses do occur, appropriate loss mitigating efforts are undertaken. 9. Learn from your mistakes – While we all know this rule, few apply it in practice. One of the best ways of achieving this is to introduce a process of analysing loss events in the company. As and when losses are 10. Do business and take risks – Risk Management is about managing risks. If there is no business growth or activities, there are no risks. So, please do take risks and learn to manage them using above steps.