One year ago, corporate risk managers found themselves suddenly thrust into the spotlight, as their companies worked quickly to understand if they had the playbooks needed to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
Risk managers are entering the new year under the same intense spotlight, now facing questions about whether they have the tools, processes and resources to anticipate, plan for and respond to the next crisis.
Today, we’re publishing the results of a new survey of 410 professionals who are responsible for identifying and managing risk and compliance, working at companies in the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand with more than $500 million in annual revenue.
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The commissioned survey, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Dataminr, found three major takeaways:
#1: Invest in a real-time alerting solution to manage risks quickly, effectively and proactively
Fast, relevant and accurate information is crucial for effective security and risk management. Over four-fifths (82 percent) of enterprise risk professionals believe having visibility and insights around real-time information is more necessary today than ever before. Some 44 percent of respondents say they plan to either implement, or expand their implementation of, a real-time alerting platform in the next year.
Additionally, the data suggests that companies that describe their enterprise risk management efforts as “optimized” or “measured” are finding more value in real-time information than their industry peers, whose risk management functions are more ad hoc. The survey finds that 37 percent of high maturity companies use real-time information to inform crisis communications, and 32 percent use it to impact response plans as a crisis unfolds—about twice the rate of companies with less mature enterprise risk management.
#2: An inconsistent use of real-time information hinders strategy and action
Roughly 8 out of 10 enterprise risk professionals said they felt it was important to have visibility and insights into real-time information affecting their business. But when asked to define “real-time information,” their answers ranged from seconds to months.
Just 16 percent defined real-time information as data from the past few minutes or less. The majority of respondents said they’d define real-time information as either from today, this week, or this month. Another 12 percent said they’d define it as data from this quarter.
“Our research shows that there is room for organizations to grow more confident in their use of real-time information through a more complete understanding of its potential,” the study states.
#3: Inflexible technologies and siloed processes make real-time information less accessible when needed most
Some 68 percent of respondents either agreed, or strongly agreed, that access to real-time information inside their company was siloed, where one team serves as a gatekeeper, forwarding information selectively to other teams.
Even with real-time information in hand, roughly half of respondents said it was challenging to turn that information into action, due to company culture, process efficiency, cross-functional collaboration, inflexible tools and a lack of clear roles and responsibilities internally, hindering process and operations.
We’ll delve more into the major findings of this survey in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, feel free to download the study now.
