Build Your Risk Program: Start Here
Whether you are in the process of beginning build your risk program, formalizing it, or in the midst of maturing it, here are some factors for consideration. Organizations should not design risk management programs as a process set in stone. Risk is a river – a constant flow with changing currents, power, and directions.
Defining Risk
Risks can come from multiple sources, and at any time. Today’s geopolitical climate, uncertainty in the financial markets, threats from project failures, legal liabilities, accidents, natural causes and disasters, deliberate attacks. Risk is defined as potential events that may impact the company. Your challenge is to evaluate which threats are most impactful to you.
Continuous Monitoring and Mitigation
Once risk is defined, companies can manage them with mitigation strategies. These strategies are documented in policies, procedures, and even departmental plans to communicate across the organization. However, without continuous risk monitoring to evaluate and prioritize risk and present issues, risk management will quickly fail. What we consider an organizational risk today, may become a non-issue tomorrow. What was here yesterday will not be here tomorrow. The company’s risk management program needs to be fluid to adjust to the latest business priorities.
The Steady State of Risk Management is…
The ability to evaluate which risks take priority first ensures the proper allocation of resources. All organizations, large or small, need a platform that is fluid and adjustable, yet can be maintained to react to changes in market conditions, personnel changes, technology changes and before, during, and after – risk events.
With the rapid pace of risk, without the adoption of a continued risk management program to assist, these risks become more costly by the day.
Without an effective platform, and continuous monitoring, risk management will mostly fail. This task is impossible to complete in spreadsheets, given that risk data comes from multiple sources. That data must be aggregated, prioritized and evaluated for mitigation based on impact, inherent and residual risk factors.
Do you need help prioritizing your risk? Contact us for more information on the C1Risk automation platform. Feel free to check us out on Gartner’s review site, Capterra first to see what our customers say about us.