August 14, 2023 — The 14th edition of The State Of Risk Oversight* (Why the disconnect? Risks are everywhere; risk management is not | ERM - Enterprise Risk Management Initiative | NC State Poole College of Management (ncsu.edu)) begins with a provocative question: "Why the disconnect? Risks are everywhere; risk management is not." Well, the GB Journal certainly couldn't walk past a question like that. Let's hop in.
From the intro: "Mark Beasley, CPA, Ph.D., a professor at N.C. State and director of the school's ERM Initiative, analyzes the disconnect, explains why a post-pandemic sigh of relief is not a good sign for risk managers...." This assertion caught our attention since we have labored long in the vineyards of risk management since COVID reared its ugly head to look at the various ways in which risk has changed and developed new extensions, like the cybersecurity challenges of massive work from home arrangements, or even reverted to older problems, as in the case of recently rising traffic accidents and fatalities. As we note in our lead (above), cryptocurrencies are now an exposure we probably have to take seriously as a part of doing certain aspects of business nowadays, presenting yet another new risk wrinkle.
The report begins with a wide-ranging overview of the present risk-scape and the most current survey of world-wide risk executives. The report includes diagnostic questions which can be used to pinpoint potential next steps and it ends with a call to action to evaluate risk management completeness. Why read the report? We find overviews of this kind to be excellent tools for thinking critically, asking new questions, making useful comparisons. One example — the report looks at new ideas is risk monitoring and developing novel metrics to better track known exposures and to spot new ones.
The report looks into the risk practices of some 454 different organizations around the globe. How many may be wrestling with risk issues similar to those on your desk? Probably a few. Worth checking out, we'd say. To make the information even more available, the report includes a related podcast — a pretty painless way to gather some new insights.
Perhaps you have no disconnects in your risk program. Now you have a way to see if you have all the boxes ticked. Sounds like useful information to us. After all, no less than Warren Buffet has reminded us that "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."
*An annual report produced jointly by the AICPA & CIMA, together as the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, and the ERM Initiative at North Carolina State University published July 20, 2023, so it still has that lovely new data smell.
Author
Dr. Gary Anderberg
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