Covering every potential risk and planning for every contingency in business is impossible. Or is it?
To try to answer this question companies must decide at the outset what is known as their ‘appetite for risk’.
That might sound like the name of a failed heavy metal band, but with the number of jobs available right now on s1jobs in the fields of Risk Management, it’s clear this is much more than axe solos and mullet hair-dos.
The truth is the modern business environment is filled with risk. The risks in areas such as HR, technology and legislation are among the top considerations that keep CEOs and Finance Directors awake at night.
Focusing directly on the financial world, there are the obvious risks to investments and portfolios, mostly for larger companies.
Pension risks, too, have been big news stories with companies failing to adequately prepare for future shocks and finding themselves with deep holes in their accounts.
They can be termed as having been ‘risk unaware’ and are now paying the price.
So, if you’re looking at a job managing risk, in whatever role, you’ll first want to understand the spectrum of risk appetite before you start polishing up your CV for s1jobs.
Firstly, if a company is risk averse, it will do everything in its power to minimise the dangers to the business’s accounts, reputation and practices.
This means the risk manager will have a relatively easy time saying ‘No!’ to innovation – you certainly won’t need much to justify shooting down ideas you see as red flags.
On the other hand, a risk aware company will want the details of all possible risks –everyone wants to know these, even if they plan to ignore them – and then ask for contingency plans for every decision.
As the Risk Manager the more risks taken, the more you will need to analyse and plan for every eventuality . . . and, ultimately, the more rewarding your daily work will be.
This means some days you might want to frighten the socks off middle managers by turning up for work wearing placards that say ‘The End Is Nigh!’.
On other days you’ll do everything you can to make the risks pay off for bold decision makers.
The choice of how to play your hand, of course, will be yours.