Something we’ve learned from the coronavirus pandemic is that the most resilient organizations are those that have spent significant time and effort in managing risk and forecasting trends with the greatest potential impact on business performance.
Global health crises aside, there are many threats that pose risk to an organization’s operations and capacity to meet objectives. The ISO 31000 standard provides the type of guidance needed in times like these to achieve objectives, manage risks and opportunities, and create and protect value.
The ISO 31000 principles form the foundation for managing risks and the effects of uncertainty on an organization’s objectives. When addressed together, the principles create and protect organizational and enterprise value, which is the overall purpose of risk management. Here is a summary of the ISO 31000 principles:
- Risk management needs to be integrated in all organizational activities and decision-making.
- Risk management should be structured and comprehensive to create consistent and comparable outcomes.
- The risk management framework and process should be customized and tied to organizational objectives and internal and external contexts.
- It is inclusive in involving the knowledge and perspectives of stakeholders in risk decision-making.
- Risk management needs to be dynamic, meaning risk management activities should be agile in anticipating, detecting, and responding to new or shifting risks.
- Risk management is based on the best available information – historical, current, and future projections – to make the best decisions.
- Effective risk management considers human behavior and cultural factors, as these can significantly affect risk management decisions.
- Risk management is enhanced by continual improvement through experience and learning.
Enablon’s integrated suite of applications helps organizations meet these core principles of ISO 31000 while also providing the tools necessary to follow the risk management process. Here are just some ways that Enablon can help support ISO 31000:
- Establish a consistent and comprehensive approach to risk management across the organization thereby generating comparable risk information.
- Share and communicate important information to all relevant stakeholders.
- Quickly access risk assessments and status of controls at all levels of the organization.
- Keep risk management dynamic with data and reporting so that your organization can respond quickly to changes and emerging risks.
- Take advantage of having an integrated view of risk performance data from other modules (incident management, compliance management, audits, inspections, etc.)
- Generate reports like risk heat maps, control effectiveness matrices, action plan reports, and others, to make decisions on prioritization.
