Brian Stafford

Effective risk management is a key component of corporate governance. By leveraging new risk management technologies and frameworks, organizations can better mitigate and manage an increasing number of risks by analyzing information from a broader data set, automating processes and controls, and ultimately, preparing for risks before they become a larger issue and materially impact day-to-day operations.

Board oversight has expanded beyond governance and is an exercise in risk management. As new technologies such as AI continue to emerge, boards are tasked with understanding and adapting to these technologies to maintain their organization’s competitiveness. In doing so, new technologies can enhance organizational transparency, streamline processes, and contribute to strategic planning. By understanding and adapting to new technologies, boards can enhance their oversight capabilities and ultimately contribute to their organization’s success in the digital era.

Selecting the correct ERM framework is crucial for effective risk management within your organizations. Leadership teams need to follow these steps to make informed decisions: have a strong understanding of organizational needs; research and evaluate available frameworks; consider if there are any regulatory requirements for your industry; engage stakeholders from across the organization; and pilot a framework. One of the most important requirements is to make sure the ERM framework integrates risk management seamlessly into your business processes while aligning with your overall objectives.

Using an ERM framework allows leadership teams to see a simple snapshot of their risk program in one single platform. It can provide consolidated insights, a risk heatmap and a real-time view of top strategic risks. This empowers leadership with the full picture of their organization’s risk landscape so they can spend more time making informed decisions and less time sifting through disparate data streams.

Implementing a strong enterprise risk management program is crucial to any organization’s success, especially as risks continue to grow in both number and complexity. As an organization, centralizing your risk management program into a one single platform is key. It allows you to automate and streamline your efforts to manage risk while providing actionable insights to your leadership team and board, which will ultimately help them spend less time deciphering complex data and more time making informed decisions.

Collaborative leadership creates an environment where diverse thoughts and perspectives are needed to contribute to product innovation. Measuring the success of leadership while a team is creating new products or solutions, requires assessing several factors including the number of new ideas generated, how quickly these ideas can be implemented, the success rate of new ideas/projects (i.e. revenue generated or cost savings), and customer feedback/reactions to these new solutions.