Strategic risk: are they threats or opportunities?

It is a regular activity for an organisation to undertake a risk assessment of its operating environment to consider, review, and document the many threats that organisations face.

These threats are compared against the organisation’s defences (or internal control frameworks and systems) to understand whether further mitigating actions are required to manage these threats that challenge tolerance levels.

What if this same rigour could be applied to strategic risks that represent opportunities?

Not only would your organisation benefit from managing the strategic risk, but also potentially realise further benefits to the organisation.

Whether it is:

• Investment in new technology which lowers the unit cost of service delivery over time – greater efficiency and control over input consumption
• Empowering your workforce with the skills and authorisations to perform their activities, when required without unnecessary bureaucracy – just in time and cutting “internal red-tape”
• Embracing the lessons learned from working with COVID and embedding those “workarounds” and other beneficial practices into working in the new-normal
• Developing the can-do culture of the organisation – priority actions are fully embraced by your workforce and successfully delivered
• Providing new avenues for your customers to easily gain the information they seek from your organisation
• Engaging with your community: local, regional, cities, State, and Country that develops and embeds the good reputation of your brand.

Strategic risk opportunities can start from small things, but over time, they can create a positive momentum that can drive your organisation to achieve better results and outcomes.

So where do you start?

• Your organisation makes a conscious decision that it will view Risk Management as both threats and opportunities.
• You dedicate Executive time to the exploration of the strategic opportunities, define and design activities, allocate resources to implement and actively manage to fruition.

How do we find time to do this?

Basically, it boils down to three main options:

• Hire a consultant to do it for you; or
• Do it all yourself; or
• Form a strategic partnership with an organisation that will help you along the journey.

All three options are legitimate ways of dealing with your strategic opportunities, but they are not all the same. Why?

Hiring a consultant to do it all will be the most expensive and also has a higher risk (compared to the other options) of not “hitting the mark” through lack of engagement and/or simply not understanding the uniqueness of your business. There is also a risk of loss of knowledge-gain through the process.

Doing it all yourself will be cheaper, but you run the risk of it taking too much time, or being overtaken by other events, or being outdated.

RSM believes that the third ‘partnership’ option blends the best components of the first two options.

It brings the experienced skills required to complement your organisation, as well as ensuring that you can deliver in the right style for your organisation, within the preferred time.

HOW CAN RSM HELP?

Would you like to find out how your organisation can benefit from strategic risk opportunities, as a result of conducting RSM facilitated strategic risk reviews?
Get in touch with your local RSM Office for more information.