Risk management needs to be actually embedded in the day to day operations of your business to be effective and sustainable. It needs to appeal to, and capture the attention of, operational line management by being unbureaucratic, focused on the areas of real risk to the business and help, rather than hinder, decision making. Many organisations find effective embedding to be the trickiest part of risk management. We have developed a practical framework to do this that has been successfully implemented at a number of major organisations.

We provide practical solutions to overcome the challenges of embedding risk management using our Risk Early Warning System. This system gives a clear co-ordinated picture of linkage between risks and performance – driving risk management through specifically derived performance indicators, focused on the causes of key business risks. Risks are then monitored using traffic light reporting of these operational ‘lead’ indicators – focused on measuring the causes and drivers of key risks – rather than ‘lag’ indicators describing the symptoms or impact of those risks. This provides a framework for early warning of future problems so that timely management actions can be taken.