FOCUSING ON THE RIGHT THINGS
Dan Swanson, CMA, CISA
The continual improvement of management practices is vital for an organization to remain competitive in the global economy. A much more critical issue is for organizations to be focusing on the right strategies and goals. Without a clear picture of where the company is headed, and an alignment of the business units’ efforts to achieving these goals, long-term success is threatened.
With the significant increase in competition, aggressive corporate goals and targets are becoming the norm. To address this challenge, organization leaders are increasingly strengthening their risk management practices to ensure that when or if an initiative or business unit performance "goes off the rails" that it is identified early, and management actions are taken to address the situation.
The author has developed a comprehensive list of web sites that support the improvement of various risk management processes. In addition, the best practice reports identified provide guidelines and numerous management lessons learned to help an organization establish and strengthen their risk management practices.
To paraphrase the feature report - "In the global economy, organizations need to embrace risk to survive -- with many (most) organizations needing to greatly increase the risks they take to be successful long term. The goal is to establish an operating culture where every manager thinks and acts like a risk manager."
RISK MANAGEMENT SUMMARY - LEADING WEB SITES & REPORTS
A) Feature Report -- an IFAC 1999 Study of "Risk Management"
"Enhancing Shareholder Wealth by Better Managing Business Risk"
>http://www.ifac.org/StandardsAndGuidance/FMAC/Study9-enhancingShareholder/Study9.html
B) Four excellent Risk Management reports (from a 1999 Canadian Federal Government Study)
Summary Report -- Best Practices in Risk Management
>http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/dcgpubs/RiskManagement/rm-ccpmn_e.html
Detail Reports -- Best Practices in Risk Management: Private and Public Sectors
>http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/dcgpubs/RiskManagement/rm-pps_e.html
>http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/dcgpubs/RiskManagement/rm-rcbp_e.html
>http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/dcgpubs/RiskManagement/rm-riv_e.html
C) Feature Web Site -- "IFCI Risk Management" web site
International Finance & Commodities Institute (IFCI)
>http://risk.ifci.ch/about.htm
>http://risk.ifci.ch/SiteMap.htm
>http://risk.ifci.ch/Index.htm
13 Questions on Risk Management (for the Board of Directors and Senior Management)
>http://risk.ifci.ch/ThirteenQuestions.htm
D) Other Web Site Documents on Risk Management and Risk Assessment
1) Information Security Management - Learning from Leading Organizations>http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/pdf_sing.pdf
2) Information Security Risk Assessment - Practices of Leading Organizations
>http://www.gao.gov./special.pubs/ai00033.pdf
3) Software Risk Evaluation Method - Version 1.0
>http://www.sei.cmu.edu/pub/documents/94.reports/pdf/tr19.94.pdf
E) Leading Risk Management books
1) Risk Management For Executives - A Practical Handbook
2) Operational Risk and Financial Institutions
3) Portfolio and Risk Management - Magellan On-Line Learning CD-Rom
4) Corporate Risk: Strategies & Management
5) Protecting Shareholder Value - A Guide To Managing Financial Market Risk
6) Risk Management in Banking
F) Leading Risk Management Web Sites
1) The Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc. (RIMS)
2) The Risk Institute - Risk Management Resource Center (RMRC)
> http://www.riskinstitute.org/
3) International Finance & Commodities Institute (IFCI)
4) Software Engineering Institute (SEI) -- Software Acquisition Management Improvement
>http://www.sei.cmu.edu/programs/sepm/risk/
>http://www.sei.cmu.edu/programs/sepm/risk/risk.products.html
5) Mc2 Management Consulting (Risk Management and Risk Assessment)
>http://www.mc2consulting.com/riskpage.htm
>http://www.mc2consulting.com/riskart8.htm
>http://www.mc2consulting.com/riskart9.htm
6) Risk Management - Various Other Leading Sites
>http://cfonet.com/html/rcntt&rm.html
>http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/
>http://www.businessinsurance.com:80/
Dan Swanson, CMA, CISA is a management consultant with LGS Group in Winnipeg, Canada. He specializes in systems audit and management consulting and can be reached at dswanson@lgs.ca.
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