There are few absolutes in the business world. Perhaps “the customer is always right” and “you have to spend money to make money” are contenders. The most certain thing in business is uncertainty. Uncertainty grows as the enterprise scales and managing uncertainty – via risk management programs – becomes a significantly complex problem. The resulting mix of people, processes, and data involved in risk management morphs into a multifaceted program with many moving parts.
There are parallels between risk management programs and other key elements of the modern enterprise such as Human Resources, Finance and Sales and Marketing. These functions leverage enterprise-class systems, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Finance suites, to manage the complex business processes involved with managing customers or finances. These systems provide a range of benefits, including increased efficiency and better decision-making capabilities.
Enterprise systems can improve collaboration by providing employees with access to shared data and information facilitating communication and interaction between departments. For example, a CRM system can provide sales teams with access to marketing data, which can help them develop more effective sales strategies. Similarly, a finance suite can provide business leadership with access to financial data, which can help them make better-informed financial decisions.
The time has come to consider a risk management platform as a necessary enterprise system just like an HR or CRM platform because it enables organizations to manage their risks comprehensively and efficiently. The traditional approach of managing risks in silos is no longer sufficient, as it fails to address the interdependent nature of risks and their potential impact on the organization as a whole.
There are many ways an instantiated risk hits the bottom line such as regulatory fines, reputational hits, and operational losses. An integrated risk management approach is necessary to effectively address these challenges but there are complexities within organizations that must be addressed. Optimizing a solution to the problem involves consolidating risk management functions into a single, comprehensive system that can identify, assess, and manage risks holistically. An integrated risk management platform consolidates all risk management functions into a single system, providing a holistic view of risks and their impact on the organization.
To learn more about how integrated risk management has become a critical enterprise capability, read our white paper “Integrated Risk Management: The Enterprise Capability Your Organization Needs”.