Carol Williams

2 Simple Steps to Knowing If Your Organization Needs Enterprise Risk Management

July 19, 2017

You may be shocked to hear me say this… Not every organization needs enterprise risk management (ERM). Of course, before you can know if your organization needs ERM, you have to make sure you understand the differences between ERM and traditional risk management. Then you can start the next step in the process: Step 1:…

ERM Now Formally a Factor in Credit Ratings Issued by Top Agency

July 3, 2017

Credit ratings for banks, insurance companies and publicly-traded companies are issued by one of three agencies: Standard & Poor’s (S&P), Moody’s or Fitch. Together, these firms account for 95% of credit ratings issued in the world. Although each of these firms evaluates a company’s ability to handle risks to the enterprise in one way or…

4 Ways ERM Can Add Value During the Project Lifecycle

June 23, 2017

A Risky Upgrade Sometimes the simple projects are the ones that carry the most risk. A few years ago, a large organization undertook a project to upgrade its HR software. Since the upgrade was to be handled as part of a renewal of an existing contract, the Sponsor and executives considered it a necessary project…

3 Best Practices for Factoring Risk into Your Strategic Planning Process

June 8, 2017

No one enjoys strategic planning exercises. They conjure images of a stuffy room filled with executives in dark suits, stacks of paper strewn across the table, and whiteboards covered in scribble. Even in the most collaborative organizations, each executive represents his own department as he vies for the few dollars set aside for yearly projects.…

5 Critical Steps to Cultivating a Positive Risk Culture

May 22, 2017

Your company keeps experiencing negative events like vendor(s) not keeping their commitments, product changes that weren’t received well, or people leaving the company in droves because they feel like their job has no meaning or they are not valued. Management doesn’t understand why these events keep happening much less how to address them; they just…

How to Use Risk Appetite and Risk Tolerance to Guide Decisions

May 16, 2017

The goal of risk management, especially enterprise risk management (ERM), is to provide management (and the entire company) with valuable insights for risk-informed decision-making. But day in and day out, decisions are being made that don’t reflect what is voiced in the risk appetite statement approved by executives. Growth is being stifled, and the company…

Handling Unrealistic Expectations of Enterprise Risk Management

May 3, 2017

You have been told to put together an enterprise risk management program. Oh, and by the way, they want X, Y, and Z in 3 months. After picking your jaw off the floor, your head starts spinning with the impossibility of meeting those expectations. What do you do? You think that there is only one…

Rescue Your ERM Program’s Reputation with Branding

April 25, 2017

Your organization has long had a risk management department or an insurance department. Now that leadership is committed to having enterprise risk management embedded into the organization, you are struggling to get buy-in on how this idea is different from what you already have. How do you overcome this to achieve success with ERM? People…

An Enterprise Risk Management Program is NOT One-size Fits All

April 21, 2017

Designing an ERM program involves a lot of experimentation based on your company’s leadership, culture and operations The board and/or executives have decided to establish an enterprise risk management (ERM) program. You have been given the responsibility of designing an ERM program for your organization and have established that they are in it for the…