North America

North American risk executives represented approximately 28 percent of the total survey pool of the Accenture 2011 Global Risk Management Study. For these companies, the risk organization is an especially important driver when it comes to improving regulatory compliance, but also to driving sustained future profitability. As the global study found, risk management is now more than a reactive function, and is a proactive source of sustained growth and long-term competitive advantage.

Relatively high numbers of North American firms (92 percent) have a comprehensive Enterprise Risk Management program in place or plan to implement one in the next two years. At the same time, lower numbers of North American executives see their risk function as a source of competitive advantage: only 22 percent state this is true to a great extent, compared to 36 percent in Europe and 44 percent for the global average.

Over the next couple of years, as they work to enhance their risk management capabilities, North American firms will be especially focused on investments in analytics, data quality and IT architectures.