Will Organizations Start Listening to their Risk Managers?

Last week we asked the LinkedIn community, “Will organizations start listening to their risk managers?“. The response that the question has received has been extremely insightful – despite the respondents’ discouraging predictions.

The question in full highlighted the fact that many organizations were forewarned about the financial crisis and that the choice was made to continue to focus on marketing and sales rather than risk management. We asked in light of this, will organizations start listening to their risk managers, or will it be business as usual once the crisis is over?

Overall, the LinkedIn members that responded felt that business would resume as usual without any significant change to how risk management is viewed and addressed. Many respondents pointed out that any change would be dependent on the individual organization, and that the onus would rest with management to prioritize risk mitigation and to make it a part of the organization’s culture.

Many feel that risk management is still being seen as an expense rather than an important operational cost or as an investment. It seems that the perceived gap between risk management and corporate growth is ever-existent. We may see an increase in the important places on risk management in theory, but we probably won’t see it addressed the way that it should be.

Some individuals active in the discussion felt that any change that we would see in how risk management is addressed would come only in organizations that have been forced to engage in reactive risk management in the past. It is expected that then, those companies will choose to invest in proactive risk management activities to prevent future loss.

The additional findings are summarized below:

• Profit will continue to be favoured over caution despite the costs associated with poor risk management.
• Change will come if the risk management solutions are simple. If they are complex or costly, it will continue to be overlooked.
• There will be change only if all organizations change and treat risk management as an integral and vital part of their operations.

We want to see organizations investing in proactive risk management measures and making risk management a part of their organizational culture. But if a major economic breakdown isn’t going to encourage more stringent risk management efforts and the dedication of resources to put risk planning in place, we wonder, what will it take?

We would like to thank the LinkedIn members that provided their opinions on this matter. To become part of the discussion, please feel free to leave your comments below, or provide your views on LinkedIn via the original post.

(Images from StillSearc on Stock.Xchng)

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