Michael Zerbs,Vice President, IBM Risk Analytics
By Michael Zerbs
Sensitivity around risk management is no longer solely a concern for large financial services organizations. In an economy still freshly scarred by the global financial crisis, what we are seeing is a pervasive questioning of the fundamental assumptions that large organizations, and individual investors so easily took for granted pre-crisis.
Questions that are now top of mind include, do I fully understand risk exposures across my organization? Can I trust my governance processes to sufficiently ensure accurate risk reporting? Can I accurately quantify the riskiness of a transaction? And, is my point of reference for riskiness really reliable?
These questions – while shaped by evolving risk regulation – are business issues, not compliance issues. Organizations in a wide variety of industries now understand more than ever that risk is intrinsically bound to decision making, and that navigating this relationship between risk and decision making is critical for performance. Our clients are challenged to operate and perform optimally in an environment that is increasingly complex, regulated and competitive. However, thanks to analytics they now have the tools at their disposal to harness insights that simply were not previously available.
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IBM is excited to be leading the charge in this space, investing in key technological advancements that will address the evolving risk needs faced by our clients.
Of course, technology alone is not the answer. The successful adoption of an enterprise risk management platform requires a truly pervasive approach to risk management. To that end, IBM has sponsored The Risk Enabled Enterprise – a two-year research initiative by Chartis Research, the leading provider of research and analysis for risk technology. Research will cover key enablers such as culture, organizational structure, data, systems and processes.
To learn more about this research initiative, see last week’s blog by John Macdonald. I explore a similar theme in my latest editorial article, with a focus on trust. That is, trust in the quality and reliability of the underlying data and operational processes, trust in the integrity of the analytics, and trust in the management processes driving reliable actions emanating from risk insights.
We explored these topics and many more and from a variety of angles at Vision 2013, IBM’s premier global conference for finance, risk and incentive compensation professionals. If you missed it, I encourage you to check out the Livestream of the Risk keynote session.