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New Addition To
Commodities Global Ltd
Risk
Management
Business
Risk and Efficiency Management
We
are a company who are
leaders in "Business Risk Awareness" packages
which are tailored to suit your business needs, ranging from small awareness
packages through to systems for the "Multinational" corporations.
The developer of this technology has been in "Law Enforcement", "Anti-Terrorism"
and for the last 18 years "Head of Anti-Fraud" for a worldwide top 50 bank.
Risk management
is the human activity which integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment,
developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial
resources.
The strategies
include transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the
negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a
particular risk.
Some traditional
risk managements are focused on risks stemming from physical or legal causes
(e.g. natural disasters or fires, accidents, death and lawsuits). Financial risk
management, on the other hand, focuses on risks that can be managed using traded
financial instruments.
Objective of risk
management is to reduce different risks related to a pre-selected domain to the
level accepted by society. It may refer to numerous types of threats caused by
environment, technology, humans, organizations and politics. On the other hand
it involves all means available for humans, or in particular, for a risk
management entity (person, staff, and organization).
Some Explanations
In ideal risk
management, a prioritization process is followed whereby the risks with the
greatest loss and the greatest probability of occurring are handled first, and
risks with lower probability of occurrence and lower loss are handled in
descending order. In practice the process can be very difficult, and balancing
between risks with a high probability of occurrence but lower loss versus a risk
with high loss but lower probability of occurrence can often be mishandled.
Intangible risk
management identifies a new type of risk - a risk that has a 100% probability of
occurring but is ignored by the organization due to a lack of identification
ability. For example, when deficient knowledge is applied to a situation, a
knowledge risk materializes. Relationship risk appears when ineffective
collaboration occurs. Process-engagement risk may be an issue when ineffective
operational procedures are applied.
These risks
directly reduce the productivity of knowledge workers, decrease cost
effectiveness, profitability, service, quality, reputation, brand value, and
earnings quality. Intangible risk management allows risk management to create
immediate value from the identification and reduction of risks that reduce
productivity.
Risk management
also faces difficulties allocating resources. This is the idea of opportunity
cost. Resources spent on risk management could have been spent on more
profitable activities. Again, ideal risk management minimizes spending while
maximizing the reduction of the negative effects of risks.
Steps in the risk
management process
Establish the
context
1.
Planning
the remainder of the process.
2.
Mapping out
the following: the social scope of risk management, the identity and objectives
of stakeholders, and the basis upon which risks will be evaluated, constraints.
3.
Defining a
framework for the activity and an agenda for identification.
4.
Developing
an analysis of risks involved in the process.
5.
Mitigation of
risks using available technological, human and organizational resources.
Identification
After establishing
the context, the next step in the process of managing risk is to identify
potential risks. Risks are about events that, when triggered, cause problems.
Hence, risk identification can start with the source of problems, or with the
problem itself.
Source analysis
Risk sources may be internal or external to the system that is the target of
risk management. Examples of risk sources are: stakeholders of a project,
employees of a company or the weather over an airport.
Problem analysis
Risks are related to identified threats. For example: the threat of losing
money, the threat of abuse of privacy information or the threat of accidents and
casualties. The threats may exist with various entities, most important with
shareholders, customers and legislative bodies such as the government.
When either source
or problem is known, the events that a source may trigger or the events that can
lead to a problem can be investigated. For example: stakeholders withdrawing
during a project may endanger funding of the project; privacy information may be
stolen by employees even within a closed network; lightning striking a Boeing
747 during takeoff may make all people onboard immediate casualties.
The chosen method
of identifying risks may depend on culture, industry practice and compliance.
The identification methods are formed by templates or the development of
templates for identifying source, problem or event. Common risk identification
methods are:
Objectives-based risk identification
Organizations and
project teams have objectives. Any event that may endanger achieving an
objective partly or completely is identified as risk. Objective-based risk
identification is at the basis of COSO's Enterprise Risk Management - Integrated
Framework
Scenario-based
risk identification
In scenario analysis different scenarios are created. The scenarios may be the
alternative ways to achieve an objective, or an analysis of the interaction of
forces in, for example, a market or battle. Any event that triggers an undesired
scenario alternative is identified as risk - see Futures Studies for methodology
used by Futurists.
Taxonomy-based
risk identification
The taxonomy in taxonomy-based risk identification is a breakdown of possible
risk sources. Based on the taxonomy and knowledge of best practices, a
questionnaire is compiled. The answers to the questions reveal risks.
Taxonomy-based risk identification in software industry can be found in CMU/SEI-93-TR-6.
Common-risk
Checking
In several industries lists with known risks are available. Each risk in the
list can be checked for application to a particular situation. An example of
known risks in the software industry is the Common Vulnerability and Exposures
list found at http://cve.mitre.org.
Risk Charting
This method combines the above approaches by listing Resources at risk, Threats
to those resources Modifying Factors which may increase or reduce the risk and
Consequences it is wished to avoid. Creating a matrix under these headings
enables a variety of approaches. One can begin with resources and consider the
threats they are exposed to and the consequences of each. Alternatively one can
start with the threats and examine which resources they would affect, or one can
begin with the consequences and determine which combination of threats and
resources would be involved to bring them about.
Assessment
Once risks have
been identified, they must then be assessed as to their potential severity of
loss and to the probability of occurrence. These quantities can be either simple
to measure, in the case of the value of a lost building, or impossible to know
for sure in the case of the probability of an unlikely event occurring.
Therefore, in the assessment process it is critical to make the best educated
guesses possible in order to properly prioritize the implementation of the risk
management plan.
The fundamental
difficulty in risk assessment is determining the rate of occurrence since
statistical information is not available on all kinds of past incidents.
Furthermore, evaluating the severity of the consequences (impact) is often quite
difficult for immaterial assets. Asset valuation is another question that needs
to be addressed. Thus, best educated opinions and available statistics are the
primary sources of information.
Nevertheless, risk
assessment should produce such information for the management of the
organization that the primary risks are easy to understand and that the risk
management decisions may be prioritized. Thus, there have been several theories
and attempts to quantify risks. Numerous different risk formulae exist, but
perhaps the most widely accepted formula for risk quantification is:
Rate of occurrence
multiplied by the impact of the event equals
risk
Later research has
shown that the financial benefits of risk management are less dependent on the
formula used but are more dependent on the frequency and how risk assessment is
performed.
In business it is
imperative to be able to present the findings of risk assessments in financial
terms. Robert Courtney Jr. (IBM, 1970) proposed a formula for presenting risks
in financial terms. The Courtney formula was accepted as the official risk
analysis method for the US governmental agencies. The formula proposes
calculation of ALE (annualized loss expectancy) and compares the expected loss
value to the security control implementation costs (cost-benefit analysis).
Potential risk treatments
Once risks have
been identified and assessed, all techniques to manage the risk fall into one or
more of these four major categories:
Avoidance
(aka elimination)
Reduction
(aka mitigation)
Retention
Transfer
(aka buying insurance)
Ideal use of these
strategies may not be possible. Some of them may involve trade-offs that are not
acceptable to the organization or person making the risk management decisions.
Another source, from the US Department of Defense, Defense Acquisition
University, calls these ACAT, for Avoid, Control, Accept, or Transfer.
The ACAT acronym is reminiscent of the term ACAT (for Acquisition Category) used
in US Defense industry procurements.
Risk avoidance
Includes not
performing an activity that could carry risk. An example would be not buying a
property or business in order to not take on the liability that comes with it.
Another would be not flying in order to not take the risk that the airplane were
to be hijacked. Avoidance may seem the answer to all risks, but avoiding risks
also means losing out on the potential gain that accepting (retaining) the risk
may have allowed. Not entering a business to avoid the risk of loss also avoids
the possibility of earning profits.
Risk reduction
Involves methods
that reduce the severity of the loss. Examples include sprinklers designed to
put out a fire to reduce the risk of loss by fire. This method may cause a
greater loss by water damage and therefore may not be suitable. Halon fire
suppression systems may mitigate that risk, but the cost may be prohibitive as a
strategy.
Modern software
development methodologies reduce risk by developing and delivering software
incrementally. Early methodologies suffered from the fact that they only
delivered software in the final phase of development; any problems encountered
in earlier phases meant costly rework and often jeopardized the whole project.
By developing in iterations, software projects can limit effort wasted to a
single iteration.
Risk retention
Involves accepting
the loss when it occurs. True self insurance falls in this category. Risk
retention is a viable strategy for small risks where the cost of insuring
against the risk would be greater over time than the total losses sustained. All
risks that are not avoided or transferred are retained by default.
This includes
risks that are so large or catastrophic that they either cannot be insured
against or the premiums would be infeasible. War is an example since most
property and risks are not insured against war, so the loss attributed by war is
retained by the insured. Also any amounts of potential loss (risk) over the
amount insured is retained risk.
This may also be
acceptable if the chance of a very large loss is small or if the cost to insure
for greater coverage amounts is so great it would hinder the goals of the
organization too much.
Risk transfer
Means causing
another party to accept the risk, typically by contract or by hedging. Insurance
is one type of risk transfer that uses contracts. Other times it may involve
contract language that transfers a risk to another party without the payment of
an insurance premium. Liability among construction or other contractors is very
often transferred this way. On the other hand, taking offsetting positions in
derivatives is typically how firms use hedging to financially manage risk.
Some ways of
managing risk fall into multiple categories. Risk retention pools are
technically retaining the risk for the group, but spreading it over the whole
group involves transfer among individual members of the group. This is different
from traditional insurance, in that no premium is exchanged between members of
the group up front, but instead losses are assessed to all members of the group.
Outsourcing is
another example of risk transfer. In this case companies outsource only some of
their departmental needs. For example, a company may outsource only its software
development, the manufacturing of hard goods, or customer support needs to
another company, while handling the business management itself.
This way, the
company can concentrate more on business development without having to worry as
much about the manufacturing process, managing the development team, or finding
a physical location for a call center.
Create a
risk mitigation plan
Select appropriate
controls or countermeasures to measure each risk. Risk mitigation needs to be
approved by the appropriate level of management. For example, a risk concerning
the image of the organization should have top management decision behind it
whereas IT management would have the authority to decide on computer virus
risks.
The risk
management plan should propose applicable and effective security controls for
managing the risks. For example, an observed high risk of computer viruses could
be mitigated by acquiring and implementing antivirus software. A good risk
management plan should contain a schedule for control implementation and
responsible persons for those actions.
According to ISO/IEC
27001, the stage immediately after completion of the Risk Assessment phase
consists of preparing a Risk Treatment Plan, which should document the decisions
about how each of the identified risks should be handled. Mitigation of risks
often means selection of Security Controls, which should be documented in a
Statement of Applicability, which identifies which particular control objectives
and controls from the standard have been selected, and why.
Implementation
Follow all of the
planned methods for mitigating the effect of the risks. Purchase insurance
policies for the risks that have been decided to be transferred to an insurer,
avoid all risks that can be avoided without sacrificing the entity's goals,
reduce others, and retain the rest.
Review and evaluation of the plan
Initial risk
management plans will never be perfect. Practice, experience, and actual loss
results will necessitate changes in the plan and contribute information to allow
possible different decisions to be made in dealing with the risks being faced.
Risk analysis
results and management plans should be updated periodically. There are two
primary reasons for this:
To evaluate
whether the previously selected security controls are still applicable and
effective, and
To evaluate the
possible risk level changes in the business environment. For example,
information risks are a good example of rapidly changing business environment.
Music and Lyrics by Ben Nathan
Song Name "By Your Side"
Music Copyright © Ben Nathan 2007
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