Running a business inevitably involves risks. Whether you like it or not, managing these risks is crucial for the survival of your business. This article will explore the meaning of risk management in business and its significance, providing you with the knowledge you need to navigate these challenges effectively.
What is Risk Management in Business
In simple terms, risk management in business is all about identifying, analysing, and controlling factors or events that could harm your business financially.
Businesses face various types of risks, and some of these can be extremely damaging.
Risk management enables you to spot these issues before they escalate.
Effective risk management considers every potential threat, whether big or small and evaluates its impact on the company’s strategic goals.
When this approach encompasses both external and internal risks, it’s known as enterprise risk management (ERM).
ERM doesn’t just focus on avoiding negative risks; it also looks at managing positive risks that can enhance a business’s value.
Remember, risk management doesn’t mean eliminating all risks but making informed choices about which risks to take.
It’s about making smart decisions in your business.
The Importance of Risk Management in Business
In today’s complex business landscape, risk management is more critical than ever.
Factors like globalisation and technology constantly introduce new risks.
For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted businesses globally.
Companies with effective risk management strategies adapted and even thrived in such situations.
By analysing and addressing these threats, risk management empowers your business to prepare for potential challenges, simplifies decision-making, and ensures continuity.
Benefits of Risk Management
The following are some of the benefits a good risk management strategy can offer your company:
Ensures Business Continuity
As long as your business is operational, risks will always come up occasionally.
Regardless of how much you try to avoid it, risks may arise from sources you did not know they could come from.
This is because, with technology and globalisation, the threats to businesses come from new sources and are more complex.
And most of the time, these risks can significantly affect your business, so it becomes impossible to stay operational.
But when you can properly manage your risks, you can sometimes nip these issues in the bud.
For times when you can’t address the issue at its budding stage, you can still mitigate the impact so that it won’t cause irreparable damage to your company.
Helps you Achieve Goals
Your risk management ability determines how fast you achieve your business goals.
This is because you will likely face challenges and threats when working towards something.
These threats can stall your progress if you do not tackle them well.
But when you manage these situations well, you’ll reduce their impact and be able to meet your goals in record time.
Protects your Business’s Assets -Benefits of Risk Management in Business
Cybersecurity is very important today because of how important data is.
If your company’s data gets compromised, it can suffer significant financial loss.
But with a great risk management plan, you’d know the importance of securing your company against such threats.
When protecting your company’s assets, you have to be as holistic as possible.
Aside from your data, your physical assets can also be stolen or damaged.
This is why you should get coverage for all of these things.
When you have a good risk management plan in place, you’ll make your insurance coverage a priority.
Ensures your Business Stays Profitable
If your company falls victim to a threat, it may become difficult to keep operating the way you normally would.
You may find yourself running your company at a loss because of the strain the damage has put on your company’s finances.
But if you properly manage risks, the chances of this happening are slim.
So, managing risks can help you make sure your business stays profitable.
Enterprise Risk Management Vs Traditional Risk Management in Business
There are two major approaches to managing risks: traditional risk management and enterprise risk management.
A lot of people tend to favour the latter over the former in today’s world, and this is for good reasons.
However, both approaches focus on mitigating risks in the best way possible.
They both understand the importance of insurance and how it can protect companies from different types of risks.
But the way they handle managing risks is quite different.
The major difference between these approaches is that ERM is holistic.
Traditional risk management takes a silo approach to managing risks.
In traditional risk management plans, every team or department leader is responsible for managing the risks that they face in that department or team.
For example, if the company is facing an operational threat, then the COO would be the one to handle it.
This means that the different units in the organisation must have the necessary strategy to combat the threats they face.
However, ERM acknowledges that every unit within the organisation is linked.
If one unit experiences a threat, the entire organisation will feel the impact.
Due to this, a company practising the ERM approach evaluates threats on a broader scope.
This allows them to spot potential issues faster than companies that practise the second approach.
This makes ERM more proactive than its reactive counterpart.
ERM tackles risks at their early stages.
Also, ERM does not think risks are always bad for a company.
This approach believes that risks can be a good tool to help a company achieve its strategic goals.
It also believes companies should, through proper analysis, know how to make the best out of a risky situation.
However, this mindset is not popular among companies that traditionally manage risks.
The Process of Risk Management in Business
Managing risks in business is a continuous process.
This process involves the following: identifying risks, assessing them, managing them, and then monitoring them.
Identifying Risks
The first thing you need to do when managing any risk is identify it.
It won’t be possible for you to tackle an issue if you do not even know what to start with.
During risk identification, you should know what is and isn’t a risk.
You should understand that if something doesn’t have an impact, then it can’t be classified as a threat.
Risk must be able to impact a valuable resource or asset or exploit a weakness in your company.
But if something will not affect your company in any way, then it isn’t a threat.
Next, you should figure out what kind of risk you are facing.
To do this, you should know the different categories of risks in business.
There are four main categories.
- Strategic risks include things that could impact your customer relations, reputation, technical innovation, and so on.
- Operational risks include issues that can affect operations, such as IT security, labour, supply chain, natural disasters, and so on.
- Reporting and financial risks include tax, credit, market, and so on.
- Governance and compliance risks include international trade, privacy, ethics, and regulations.
When you know the type of threat you are facing, it will be easier to come up with a solution.
Assessing Risks
Once you identify the potential threat, your next move would be to assess it.
This would help you determine whether the threat can become an issue.
If it can, then how serious an issue would it be?
What’s the level of impact it can make on your company?
These are the things that you should focus on in this phase.
Assessing risks this way would help you prioritise them.
You should also be as systematic as possible when assessing risks.
Also, take your time to document your assessment, as it may come in handy later on.
Managing Risks
The next thing you need to do in this process is manage the risk.
This means that this stage would involve some strategizing.
You need to devise the best strategy to avoid, control, or mitigate the threat.
How you respond to risks will significantly determine how well you handle them.
Monitoring Risks
Finally, once you have implemented the threat management strategy, you then have to track its progress.
Monitor the threat and see how well your strategy keeps it in check.
When you keep track, you’ll know if the risk’s severity is higher than what you had predicted.
In this case, you can then develop a better plan to help you control it.
Common Response to Risks
There are so many types of risks in business and you should not respond the same way to these different threats.
This is because the response that works for one most likely won’t work for another.
Sometimes, you can simply avoid the risk altogether.
How does avoidance count as a business risk management strategy?
Sometimes, it is the best response because if something isn’t an issue, then why make it one?
You can respond to and manage a threat in your business in several other ways.
But we’d be looking at 4 common responses below.
Avoiding Risks in Business
Avoidance is the best response to give when you assess a risk and know that its impact will be negligible.
This response helps businesses prevent potential threats from becoming actual threats.
For instance, let’s say you have faulty equipment in your company.
However, the absence of the equipment won’t affect performance, safety, or productivity.
You can decide to ignore the problem and avoid using the equipment altogether.
This is what avoidance is all about.
However, you should avoid using this response too often.
You should also not use it for long-term risks.
Also, occasionally review this response in case it stops addressing the issue.
Mitigating Risks- Risk Management in Business
A lot of people think that this is the best response to risks.
However, the truth is that this response isn’t always possible.
Sometimes, you can’t mitigate a risk, no matter how much you try.
However, if the risk’s impact is potentially devastating, you need to do everything you can to mitigate it.
This means that you have to find the best solution for the threat, devise the best plan to implement this solution and put your plan into motion.
Remember that you also have to monitor the results of the plan after implementing it.
Accepting Risks
If the risk’s impact is or will be minimal, then you could also consider just accepting it.
Or perhaps you already have backup plans that will offer a cushion for the risk’s impact if it occurs.
However, before choosing this response, you should consider timing.
If the situation is happening at a time where it may affect your business’s outlook or immediately create a concern, then you should not choose this response.
Transferring Risks
Sometimes, your business may find it challenging to handle the risk with any of the responses discussed so far.
It could be because you and your employees do not have the experience or training to handle the situation.
In this case, transferring the risks is the best response.
This could mean outsourcing the risk to an external party.
Risk Management Pitfalls
Some businesses may have a risk management strategy, but it may seem like it isn’t working.
Sometimes, it is not because their plans are bad.
It could just be that certain factors are countering their efforts.
This is why you need to know these factors that can cause your risk management efforts to fail.
So, you’d know how to avoid them.
Poor Management
If a company’s management is not working optimally, then chances are the company will not properly manage its risks.
Even when they have the necessary systems and strategies to help them manage threats better, they still have issues doing so.
This is because poor management can cause human error that can lead to issues with the plan.
Compartmentalization
When companies practice traditional risk management, each department handles its risk management.
This compartmentalization can result in a lack of transparency.
This is because each department’s data is not accessible to other departments.
So, someone analysing the risk from another department won’t be able to approach the risk holistically.
They would simply work with the data they have at hand, even when the other department’s data could have helped them to come up with a better solution.
Lack of Resilience
A lot of companies are all after efficiency, and this is good.
However, when you overemphasize efficiency and keep doing things the exact way because it is efficient, it may cause a decline in resilience.
If you are ever in a situation where you can’t carry out your processes as usual, you would be at a loss.
You most likely won’t know what to do because you do not have the resilience to push through the challenges.
If you lack resilience, it will be very difficult for you to keep up with changes.
Final Thoughts
Properly managing risks is crucial for identifying which risks are worth taking and which should be mitigated.
It can protect your business from potentially devastating threats and enable you to take calculated risks to drive success.
To achieve this, you need to correctly identify, analyze, and respond to risks.
