In our last blog, we looked at the definition of Integrated Risk Management, and how it can be used to form a holistic and comprehensive view of risk across an organization.
But what does an integrated approach to risk management look like in practice, and how should you go about setting one up?
Where should you begin?
It is important to understand that integrated risk management is a set of practices and processes, rather than a single product or endpoint in itself. At SureCloud, we characterize IRM as a program or journey, with the end state being a culture of information sharing, with consistent practice, across the organization enabling better decision making.
Step 1: Plan & Define
To begin, then, you need to understand the risks and controls framework for your entire organization. This means looking for examples of best practice and templates “out -of-the-box”, purpose-built for your industry and level of maturity as well as bespoke elements to support operational differences. The Pensions Regulator advises a period of initial planning, deciding what sort of IRM approach is most suitable for your organization, followed by a period of identifying risks and initial risk assessment, and these foundational activities are useful for all organizations, not just pension schemes.
Step 2: Implement
Next, you need to implement a consistent framework for measuring and assessing risk and compliance across your organization. This can take many forms such as questionnaires, forms, interviews or workshops. Intuitive user interfaces are crucial, to encourage user participation. Pre-defined workflows and low administrative overheads are also important, to ensure that the front line of the business is fully engaged in assessing risk and control as they have the most knowledge, while managing the valuable time away from normal business operation.
Step 3: Execute
From this starting point you must ensure that actual change occurs. You can work on streamlining, automating and crucially collaborating on GRC processes. The changes allow you to optimize effectiveness and see efficiency gains and a genuinely integrated approach to risk management.
While each IRM journey will be different, technology plays a key role for organizations embarking on theirs. The best solutions to support this helps to gain visibility over key information and will help to simplify what would otherwise be complex spreadsheet-reliant processes. These principles underpin SureCloud’s solutions.
SureCloud was recently placed in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for IRM solutions for the first time, a fantastic accolade for our capabilities in helping organizations to move away from disparate, spreadsheet-based risk management and towards a holistic, consolidated and in many ways automated approach across the business. If you’d like to learn more about implementing an IRM approach in your own organization, get in touch with us today.
Check out ‘Defining Integrated Risk Management’ where we set out what IRM really means, and how it can lead to success.
Why not watch our recent webinar on Integrated Risk Management, our EVP of North America and our Products Director discuss the fundamentals behind Integrated Risk Management and give you a glimpse into the latest Gartner IRM Solutions Magic Quadrant.