Riskology

Most organisations today have a digital presence and use software to facilitate business operations. While this offers numerous benefits like the ability to work and access data remotely, handle transactions more efficiently and even cater better to customers' preferences, it also makes organisations more vulnerable to cyber crime. Regardless of the size of your company, cyber crime is a real threat. In addition to financial loss, cyber attacks can have severe repercussions for brands' reputations and productivity.

When it comes to risk management, the hope is that the threats that we work to identify and control don't happen. If they do occur, we are sufficiently prepared to manage them, so that we don't experience the negative consequences. If you and your organisation are lucky enough to not have had to face a disaster or crisis, then perhaps you start to think you don't need really need to invest in your risk management efforts. When in doubt, we look to TV shows and movies to help us realise that our lives need a change - it's similar with risk management too!

When creating an enterprise risk management plan for your organisation, an integral component to your framework will be Key Risk Indicators (KRIs). Key risk indicators measure the potential risk related to a specific action that could negatively affect your company as well as the likeliness of risks occurring. You can think of them as early warning signals that alert your organisation to financial, operational and reputational issues, to name a few, so you can take early action to avoid or mitigate the possible risks. They are typically quantitative, often in the form of percentages, and when detected, serve as an impetus for deciding how to take action.

With greater focus being placed on the risk control environment these days, the challenge for a lot of risk managers is how to be across everything. The big benefit to living in the information age is that technology can be used to create a virtual centralised model via a decentralised approach.