Risk Management: Services Overview

Risk has always been a part of business—an enduring reality that every company must address. To compete, grow and capture benefit, organizations must accept risk. It’s what businesses do.

However, today, risk is larger, less predictable, more varied and more ubiquitous. And the nature of risk is different. Nowadays, risk is magnified by supply chain complexities, shorter product life cycles, tumultuous financial markets, sudden demand shifts, emerging competitors, global collaborations, expanding regulations and technology advances.

Risk also has many more faces: cash flow crises, supply disruptions, quality failures, cyber intrusions, financial fraud and technology breakdowns.

Clearly, companies are exposed to more risk—and more kinds of risk—than ever before. In fact, 98 percent of executive respondents to Accenture 2011 Global Risk Management Study—one of the most extensive studies of business risk ever undertaken—say that risk management is a higher priority for their company than it was just a couple of years ago.

Forward thinking companies—the kind Accenture calls high-performance businesses—recognize that a changing risk environment requires them to change also. So instead of depending on reactive, insurance- and compliance-based approaches, many of these organizations are proactively building strategic, enterprise-wide capabilities that are preemptively focused and business-benefit oriented. The idea is to make risk management less about obligation and more about opportunity.

Accenture works with clients to create and implement integrated risk management capabilities focused on generating higher economic returns, improving shareholder value and increasing stakeholder confidence.
 
Related Research & Insights:

• Report on the Accenture 2011 Global Risk Management Study
   
• The Changing Face of Risk Management
   
• The Risk Masters
   
• Managing Risk for High Performance in Extraordinary Times

 
Learn more about Accenture Risk Management

Effective risk management requires—and Accenture delivers—a unique combination of functional depth; industry knowledge; technology skills such as data mining, risk analytics and systems integration; and business transformation experience. Each of these strengths is vital to helping companies enhance risk-focused decision making; model and analyze business information; develop early warning solutions that can detect emerging threats and opportunities; embed risk management capabilities across the organization; and help organizations transform risk management into a growth-enabling capability and a source of sustainable competitive advantage.

To help clarify the goals companies have for risk management—and to profile and organize how Accenture’s risk management capabilities can help clients—we developed the Accenture Risk Management Capability Framework. The Framework consists of four building blocks—Strategy & Governance; Process Excellence and Integration; Regulatory Reform; and Performance Insight and Execution.

The Accenture Risk Management Capability Framework demonstrates the breadth and depth of our capabilities and offerings, as well as our commitment to helping clients meet the diverse challenges of today’s volatile, complex and rapidly evolving business environment.

The Accenture Risk Management Capability Framework

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Within the Risk Management Framework, Accenture’s Strategy & Governance capabilities help companies create risk strategies that align fully with their corporate vision and objectives. Toward this end, we work with companies to define risk policies and risk appetites, design organization models and assess a company’s risk management “maturity.”

Accenture’s Process Excellence and Integration capabilities focus on helping companies develop a consistent, formal approach to managing risks across the organization. The goal is to understand and improve the management of risk-related concerns in areas such as credit, markets, operations, supply chain management, sustainability and technology.

Regulatory Reform capabilities help our clients address industry and geographic issues and mandates, while repositioning compliance management as a competitive leverage point. Our use of stress testing techniques allows companies to model the impact of adverse events and incorporate those inputs into strategic planning.

Our Performance Insight and Execution capabilities help firms excel at risk-based decision making by developing market-leading skills and tools for analytics (quantifying and highlighting the impact of uncertainty); reporting (ensuring timely and accurate delivery of key information supporting risk management and governance), data management (covering data governance, quality, ownership, sourcing, storage and architecture) and performance management (adjusting performance measures for risk exposure at individual, group and corporate levels).

Like no other consultancy, Accenture provides the insights, capabilities, tools, resources and knowledge to deliver end-to-end risk management solutions whose foremost objective is to drive sustainable growth. If your company is seeking a better understanding of the nature and sources of risk—and desires a new driver of sustainable growth and increased competitive advantage—then perhaps we should talk.