Getting into the Risk "Act"

by Carl Pritchard

With disaster recovery, 9/11, the war on terror, Sarbanes-Oxley, OMB 300, and a host of other influences, there are very few businesses that have escaped the risk experience. Virtually to a one, businesses are taking on the mantle of risk managers in a forceful, overt fashion. It is not universally because they have seen the error of their ways and suddenly recognize that risk management is a practice that adds value to their shareholders. Instead, it is because they are clearly and undeniably cognizant of the fact that if they don't adopt a risk-ready posture, they have the potential to be perceived as corporately inept or (worse still) culpable. As a result, I see more and more e-mail traffic from potential clients asking how they can get a risk "program" started.