This article is part one of a series unpacking the five Call To Actions in IRMSA’s 2021 Risk Report. To learn more about the five CTAs and the report, please read this blog from thryve’s Managing Director.
The world is flat. A few centuries ago, it would take a letter several months to reach its destination. By the 19th century, countries could communicate in seconds using telegrams. Telephones opened those doors to the public at large. Today, we can reach others through a quick email, instant message, video call or voice recording.
It’s now more important to connect the right professionals with the right tools and information. Instead of trickling down, we can use digital technology to create a mesh of interactions between different parts of an organisation.
This mesh is necessary because companies need to make decisions faster, more often, and with the best information. To help facilitate that, the third Call To Action from IRMSA’s 2021 Risk Report expects risk professionals to play more visible roles – more than even the company might expect from them. They should be enablers and involved in the company’s various activities.
Why is this necessary? Moving faster is riskier, and in a world where speed of execution matters, risk managers can inform accurate decision making. It’s a theme thryve has echoed on numerous occasions: risk management can no longer be a silo. It’s time we embrace the discipline’s original intent – as a way to determine risk and opportunities for the sake of strategy. To do so, companies and their risk professionals need to flatten their risk management across people and silos:
- Do risk managers think of and design alternative futures or responses to potential risks and opportunities?
- Do they create the basis for fast and reliable decision-making in an agile business?
- Are strategy, risk and resilience integrated?
- Is there clear delegation of risk ownership and accountability?
- Are the right risk tools and information reaching the right people?
- Does the company encourage sharing information?
- Does risk management bring the right elements to the boardroom, such as what-if scenarios and proactive testing of contingency plans?
These may seem like a tall order, but not through the right technology services. Integrated Risk management (IRM) software such as Riskonnect enables the flat, mesh-like connection of people, processes and information. A company uses Riskonnect to deploy different and overlapping risk frameworks that apply to different parts of the organisation. Self-service portals suit specific workflows, departmental or project input requirements. IRM software enables new levels of information gathering, auditing, reporting and scenario planning.
Today’s business world is faster, and companies need to look beyond their risk registers to see the road ahead of them. Fortunately, digital has accelerated risk management. By implementing an IRM solution such as Riskonnect through a skilled partner – thryve, naturally – they can merge risk, strategy, and resilience to answer all the above questions and more.