Risk management helps people reach consensus and make better-informed decisions that lead to quantifiable results.
The rise in corporate scandals, coupled with recent legislation like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, have made companies more focused on risk management. Thus, it’s no surprise that enterprise risk management (ERM), which provides a framework for analyzing and confronting risks, is a practice now widely accepted by business managers, according to a 2004 survey conducted by The Conference Board and Mercer Oliver Wyman (international consultants in financial services and risk management).In the June 2005 Conference Board research report “From Risk Management to Risk Strategy,” authors Stephen Gates, a strategy professor at Audencia Nantes Ecole de Management, and Ellen Hexter, a longtime consultant for The Conference Board, found that 91% of those surveyed are positively disposed toward accepting ERM or are actively implementing the practice.The researchers surveyed 271 executives, the vast majority of which (97%) are based in North America or Europe. Although the participants represent a variety of industry sectors, over half (56%) come from manufacturing or financial services. The respondents are also heavily invested in assessing levels of risk: 93% are financial or risk managers.T