Without a doubt, 2020 has been the year of disruption, setting the scene for business for the foreseeable future. We have implemented risk mitigation and business continuity plans we never expected to execute, and many of them worked!

But what areas of risk focus should we consider for the year to come?

KPMG have just produced a pleasantly brief report (just 4 pages!) to help stimulate our thinking as business leaders, process owners, functional executives, risk managers and those tasked with independent assurance.  

They call out 10 risk focus areas;

• Business resilience
• Staff well-being and talent management
• Fraud and the exploitation of operational disruption
• Climate change: the next crisis
• Supply chain disruptions and vendor solvency
• Cyber security, data privacy in the expanded work environment
• Culture, behavior and “soft controls”
• Regulatory driven risk
• Digitization & intelligent automation
• Data- Analytics and management  

You have your own work cut out to identify and assess the risks that specifically affect your business, but this is a good way to stimulate the debate at your next leadership meeting, risk management steering group or audit committee. Or maybe you want this in your metaphorical “back pocket” for that unexpected call from the top floor! (no, not that one, the one in the corporate office!).

You can read the full article here.

Our ‘Something To Consider’ snippets are framed as small, digestible, ‘dashes of insight’ around the pillars of what we define as “World Class Finance” – Process Optimization, Financial Control and Compliance, and Risk Assurance, all underpinned by technology enablement and integration.