174 Posts Found

Senior executives often start out on the back foot when risks materialize because they have long instinctively prioritized financial resilience over operational resilience. They may have hedged against currency risk or liquidity issues but not paid enough attention to vulnerabilities embedded in the operating infrastructure that delivers their services and products to their customers—the things that matter most and that they’re in business to provide. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles, David Stainback, James Houston, Paul Williams | Source: PwC | Subject: Risk Management

Disruption creates both winners and losers. And you can only be one of the winners if you can see both sides of the coin—and are able not just to avoid the challenges, but also to envision and decisively embrace the potential opportunities within strategic risks. For most organizations, getting there requires a reboot of how they think about and evaluate risk. For example, instead of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alan Iny, Elton Parker, Jeanne Kwong Bickford, Nick D’Intino | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Innovation, Risk Management

True strategic risk management is the discipline of anticipating, preparing for, capitalizing on or mitigating, and learning from the disruptions that could either enhance or impair the organization’s ability to achieve one or more strategic objectives. In our experience, at most companies, this crucial capability is rarely functionally embedded in the organization, core to the culture, or integrated into the strategy development and planning process. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alan Iny, Elton Parker, Jeanne Kwong Bickford, Nick D’Intino | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Risk Management

We … tend to regulate to prevent a repeat of the previous crisis rather than look in an unbiased manner at points of future vulnerability.

Content: Quotation | Author: Mike Jakeman | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Economics, Risk Management

Companies unprepared for disasters put not only their competitive advantage but their very existence at risk. Hise Gibson and Anita Lynch break down what a company needs to build its operational resilience, starting with its people, processes, and technology.

Content: Article | Authors: Anita Lynch, Hise Gibson | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Risk Management

When risks combine, the cumulative impact can have existential consequences. But leaders can prevent compounding risks from sneaking up on them by adapting risk processes to manage multiple threats.

Content: Article | Authors: Celia Huber, Ophelia Usher, Ram Charan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Risk Management

Today’s more uncertain environment calls for newer, more dynamic approaches to risk management and strategic planning. Successful companies foster a culture of strategic humility, anticipatory preparedness, and a willingness to act to own the future as it unfolds. And they have four critical characteristics:

• They see risk as a two-sided coin with challenge on one side and opportunity on the other.
• They explore the strategic implications of

… [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alan Iny, Elton Parker, Jeanne Kwong Bickford, Nick D’Intino | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Risk Management, Strategy

To stay operational, even in the worst of times, focus on what matters most. It will change your risk culture.

Content: Article | Authors: Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles, David Stainback, James Houston, Paul Williams | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Risk Management

Understanding the underlying risks should be a particular focus in project selection. Research has shown time and again that human beings are weak at risk assessment, but some techniques can help. A good starting point can be to frame the discussion in terms of a base question: What do we need to believe in to make this an attractive investment? This framing can help uncover … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Project Management, Risk Management

We worry that in their headlong embrace of formal systems of risk management, many companies are pursuing a highly technical approach to risk management—characterized by complex financial models and elaborate, formal risk-management systems—in isolation from the day-to-day activities of the broader organization. The result is that risk management may exist as a formal function, but it is not really embedded in the “mindset” of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alexander Roos, James Tucker, Marc Rodt, Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Risk Management

When major threats are looming, but their timing is uncertain, it’s hard for business leaders to make an action plan for dealing with them. Wharton marketing professor emeritus George Day and global management consultant Roger Dennis call it “the paradox of preparedness.” In this essay, they offer four steps to help leaders heed the warning signs of disaster before it’s too late.

Content: Article | Authors: George Day, Roger Dennis | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Risk Management

Most people view luck as the opposite of determinism, control, or strategic intent. But because we can often influence situations in which chance plays a role, these forces are actually linked. The first challenge is to reframe your views about luck and realize that it usually entails much more than random chance. Yes, the primary force behind luck is the way that probabilities play out, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Paul J.H. Schoemaker | Source: Management and Business Review (MBR) | Subjects: Management, Risk Management

Enhanced perception and thinking about risk in new ways can help leaders navigate tumultuous times.

Content: Article | Author: Eric McNulty | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Risk Management

Have our institutions become too complex to secure?

Content: Article | Authors: Richard Horne, Sean Joyce | Source: PwC | Subjects: Corporate Governance, IT / Technology / E-Business, Risk Management

Ignoring high-consequence, low-likelihood risks can be damaging to an organization, but preparing for everything is impossibly costly. Here is how leaders can make the right investments.

Content: Article | Authors: Fritz Nauck, Leigh Weiss, Ophelia Usher | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Risk Management

We have to reengineer how we evaluate people, particularly in risky contexts. Rather than “you are your numbers,” take a holistic performance view. How do we make sure noble failures get rewarded and dumb luck does not?

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Bradley | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior, Risk Management

Dan Lovallo is a professor who works in applying psychology on biases to management topics. A simple test he did at an investment bank showed that if you applied the CEO’s risk tolerance to all the investment decisions made at lower levels rather than the more junior decision makers’ risk tolerance, the decisions would have had a 32 percent better outcome. So, there is this … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Bradley | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Risk Management, Strategy

What most crisis communication systems neglect is closing the loop with colleagues in the same careful manner as they do with their customers.

Content: Quotation | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Risk Management

If luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation, a crisis is difficulty meeting unreadiness. You can’t avoid every iceberg, but you can add a few more safety boats.

Content: Quotation | Author: Krista Berlincourt | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Risk Management

A Russian roulette equation — usually win, occasionally die — may make financial sense for someone who gets a piece of a company’s upside but does not share in its downside. But that strategy would be madness for Berkshire. Rational people don’t risk what they have and need for what they don’t have and don’t need.

Content: Quotation | Author: Warren Buffett | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Risk Management