The Value of an Independent Risk Assessment
C1Risk provides a comprehensive independent risk assessment process for your organization. Choose our experts combined with our leading GRC Automation platform identify, prioritize and mitigate your risk and improve performance every year:
Risk Assessment with automated findings and recommendations
Automated Assessment Risk Scoring and Inherent/Residual Risk Calculations
Continuous Risk Mitigation Monitoring
Risk Register with Control and Asset Mapping for a comprehensive risk strategy
Introduction
Risk assessment is an essential component of any business, making sure that operations are running smoothly and ensuring that the organization is meeting safety and regulatory standards. An independent risk assessment can be a valuable tool in evaluating and mitigating potential risks, helping businesses to identify and address areas of vulnerability and to ensure that regulatory compliance is being met.
An independent risk assessment can also provide a valuable external perspective on the organization, helping to identify areas of risk that may not be visible to internal stakeholders.
Investing in an independent risk assessment can provide a number of benefits to a business, ultimately leading to a more secure and successful operation.
What is an independent risk assessment?
An independent risk assessment is a thorough process that analyzes all aspects of a business’s operations to identify potential risks, and provides recommendations to mitigate those risks and promote a more secure environment. A risk assessment can range from a simple questionnaire to a comprehensive audit, depending on the needs of the business and the scope of the assessment. Risk assessments can be performed on a variety of different aspects of the business environment, including organizational structure, employee management, supply chain management, training and skills, asset management and risk management.
Benefits of an independent risk assessment
A risk assessment can provide a valuable external perspective on the organization, providing insight into operations that may otherwise go unnoticed by internal stakeholders. Moreover, an independent risk assessment can be tailored to the unique needs of the business, providing an objective analysis of operations and helping to identify areas of vulnerability.
Steps to completing an independent risk assessment
Before the assessment can begin, it’s important to understand the goals of the assessment.
What are you trying to accomplish with the assessment?
Why is this assessment necessary?
What are you hoping to gain from the results of the assessment?
Next, you’ll want to prepare for the assessment. This can include anything from getting key stakeholders together for a meeting to scheduling training for employees who will be involved in the assessment process. It’s important to make sure that everyone who is involved in the assessment is prepared for the process and has all of the necessary information and tools for the job.
What should be expected?
A risk assessment should begin with an evaluation of the business environment and operations, identifying potential risks and areas of vulnerability. Any aspect of the organization can be evaluated as a potential source of risk, including organizational structure, employee management, supply chain management, training and skills, asset management and risk management.
The risk assessment team should be prepared to ask questions, make observations and offer suggestions as they evaluate each area of the business.
Risk Discovery
Some of the risks that might be identified during the risk assessment include financial risks, regulatory risks, reputational risks, technology risks, supply chain risks and operational risks. Financial risks can include things like a lack of profitability, insufficient cash flow or lack of capital.
Regulatory risks can be related to compliance standards. Reputational risks can have a negative impact on brand perception, and technology risks can have a negative impact on the efficiency of systems and networks.
Action planning
After receiving the results of the risk assessment, it’s important to create an action plan for addressing the identified risks and weaknesses. Establishing a timeline for completion can be a good way to stay organized while managing multiple projects.
It’s important to keep in mind that the risk assessment is a continuous process, meaning that continuous monitoring and evaluation is necessary to make sure that the recommended improvements are being implemented. Throughout the implementation process, it’s important to remain focused on the larger goal of promoting a more secure business environment. While it’s important to follow up on recommendations from the risk assessment, it’s also important to remember that a risk assessment is not a static process. As operations continue, new risks are likely to emerge, which means that the risk assessment will need to be repeated on a regular basis to make sure that the business is still secure.
Evaluating the effectiveness of the risk assessment
Many companies still keep their Risk Register and Treatments - the data and action plans on a spreadsheet. This is inefficient and as companies grow, the ability to keep track of action plans and ensure their implementation becomes impossible. Consequently, risk programs can stagnate which leads to exposure.
Inherent and Residual Risk also need to be measured effectively and consistently in a company. While you can use your Risk Management Policy to guide inherent risk, residual risk is sometimes more arbitrarily assigned.
The C1Risk platform automates risk scoring based on your risk policies and inherent risks, while tracking your risk treatment, mitigation process and control implementation, so you can see your improvements as they happen and report out on them as and when needed.
Contact C1Risk to learn more about our independent risk assessment offering.