Thriving in 2022: Become Future-Ready and Resilience-Centric with Integrated Risk Management

Introduction

As we entered 2022, the coronavirus pandemic continues to have a strong foothold in pockets around the globe with newer variants, keeping optimistic sentiment in check.

Will 2022 be the year when the pandemic ends, and we return to normalcy? Maybe. Maybe not. Based on our conversations with our customers and partners, we have learned that organisations are no longer pondering over this question. Having weathered pandemic-led challenges in the past two years, organisations are now seeking “what’s next” and how can they prepare for it. The approach towards enterprise strategy and managing the unknown unknowns has undergone a major shift in the past two years.

The crisis has brought much-needed changes in the very DNA of today’s businesses. Organisations have realized that digitization, agility, and resilience are not just buzz words but critical to thrive in today’s unsettled business environment with several new and evolving risks.

Enterprise risk management (ERM) practices, too, are evolving from being an afterthought to becoming more future-ready and proactive. While the traditional approach to risk management involving risk identification, assessment, and mitigation will continue to be the foundation, a future-ready ERM strategy also focuses on preparedness for risk events, resilience to quickly bounce back and continue business operations in the aftermath of the event, and the ability to turn risk into a strategic advantage.

Risk Strategy for 2022 and Beyond

Around the world, organisations are looking at a highly uncertain risk landscape in 2022 with uneven economic recovery, elevated level of cyber threats, growing awareness and regulatory activity on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects, geopolitical tensions, and more. The amplified digital interconnectedness of organisations in the post-pandemic world further exacerbates the situation as a disruption anywhere in the market can quickly impact several connected businesses.

In its Global Risk Report 2022, the World Economic Forum observes, “Converging technological platforms, tools and interfaces connected via an internet that is rapidly shifting to a more decentralized version 3.0 are at once creating a more complex cyberthreat landscape and a growing number of critical failure points.”

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With the growing digital dependencies and interconnectedness between organisations, the points of intersection among risks are also multiplying. As such, looking at risks in isolation is no longer effective to manage them and their domino effect.

The pandemic has been a wake-up call for organisations and it is encouraging to see them moving away from antiquated and siloed practices and focusing on more integrated, holistic, and tech-driven approach to ERM – ensuring seamless collaboration between risk, compliance, audit, third-party, cybersecurity, and other business functions. Organisations are also increasingly adopting advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to get actionable risk insights in a timely manner for effective decision-making.

A forward-looking and resilience-centric ERM strategy, complemented with automated workflows, is critical for organisations today to ensure preparedness for the risks of tomorrow.

So, what areas should organisations focus on while devising their risk strategy for this year? Join me as I discuss this and more in the webinar "Road to Resilience: Powering your Risk Strategy to Thrive in 2022 and Beyond” with Dan wood, Senior Risk Professional & RMIA Queensland Chapter Committee, and Kieran Heinze, Global Supply Resilience Practice Lead, Infosys. To register for the webinar, click here.