Talking with People about Risks
Nov 8th, 2012
While Talking with People about Risks it is not uncommon that people ask me what I do for a job. Once I tell them I am a Risk Management Consultant they ask: “do you work on financial risks?”.
I generally reply that if they mean risks linked to banks I do not. However I quickly point out thar at the end of the day all risks are financial!
If a lightning takes down the electric substation and your factory is out of electricity for one month, the consequences are financial. You might even go into bankruptcy, right?
If you spill a toxic compound, the environmental damage will also end up as a financial consequence.
If a government let’s industries unduly pollute the air, people will get sick. At the end the financial impact on public money can be staggering.

With Riskope Risk (ORE) Corporate Cockpit managers have a clear vision of the risk landscape of their organization. Thus they have at hands valuable support for their decision making.If a government let’s industries unduly pollute the air, people will get sick, and at the end the financial impact on public money can be staggering.
Obviously, for clarity, we have to give names to risks, but lots of confusion arises (even in very authoritative studies performed for large corporations) when, as it is commonly done, risks are named following the consequence (Health and Safety, Environmental, Financial) and/or the hazard, or what is considered to be the hazard (fire, earthquake, terrorism).
Talking with People about Risks
At first sight one may think we are splitting hairs, but if you think about, this very common mistake creates a lot of trouble in risk assessment in terms of shear confusion, double counting, unclear decision making support, etc. The results? Financial consequences in terms of mitigative overspending, poor allotment of funds, etc.
At Riskope we take great care in developing rational Hazards & Risks Registers that avoid this pitfall using ORE (Optimum Risk Estimates), our flagship methodology/ application.
The advantage is not only to avoid double counting and other unwanted fuzzyness, but also to allow fully drillable Hazards & Risks Registers that can then be organized in structured cockpits with multiple dashboards.
With a Riskope Risk Corporate Cockpit managers have a clear vision of the risk landscape of their organization. Thus they have at hands valuable support for their decision making.
Riskope’s Risk Corporate Cockpits yield a dynamic, updated and customized vision of key performance indicators. They do that thanks to a business intelligence integration.
Stay tuned for our next post on Riskope Risk Corporate Cockpit!
Tagged with: cockpit, environmental, Financial, Health and Safety, Risk Management Consultant, Riskope Risk Corporate Cockpit
Category: Mitigations, Optimum Risk Estimates, Risk analysis, Risk management, Tolerance/Acceptability
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