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Risk management software is a great solution for businesses that are looking to optimise their overall risk management strategy. The variety of features offered by such tools allows you to carry out a comprehensive risk assessment. In this post, we will introduce you to some of the best practices for enterprises in Australia that aim to use tools to minimise business risks.
“A stitch in time saves nine”. For every action there is a reaction and for every consequence there is a risk. Which is why when it comes to your business, you need to take preventive measures regularly to avoid any disaster.
The practice of risk management, which can be defined as “the identification and assessment of risks to determine the potential impact of its occurrence and the preparation for it accordingly,” has been in play for many years.
While it has its origins in insurance, it has relevance in many businesses in Australia cutting across industries. And as our world becomes increasingly interdependent and complex, there are an increasing number of situations with the potential to cause serious or even catastrophic harm to business, people and the environment.
Even though there are several ways to mitigate these risks, software solutions have proven effective in helping improve and simplify risk management processes leading to significant impact on how businesses operate, and on its bottom-line.
In this guide, we share all you need to know - the most important functions, applications, benefits, as well as discovering the best risk management software tool for you.
Before we get started though, here’s a brief on what exactly is meant by a “risk management software”.
A Risk management software is an enterprise software (comprising of many tools)that helps keep businesses running smoothly by providing a way to identify and manage risks, issues and threats as well as perform tasks related to prevention of risks that can harm your business.
Realistically: Every business!.
As an essential tool, it helps organisations in many sectors manage the risks related to their activities. These tools also help in raising an organisation’s profits by the reduction of losses caused by risks and the increase of sales revenue owing to better customer satisfaction.
So you can easily see that the use of a risk management software is a win-win situation for any kind of business and its customers.
Important Note:
No matter how effectively a company performs its risk assessment, an unexpected event can still occur. To avoid being hamstrung by these events, it is wise for every business to also have risk management software at hand. In addition, a risk management software is an investment that requires very little time to see results that are lasting.
Summary: Risk management tools are highly recommended regardless of industry, business or administrative function, provided their features fit an organisation’s needs.
An increasing number of businesses consider the risks that they face and manage them to avoid going under.
But how does a risk management software help do that?
Basically as a business intelligence tool, risk management software relies on machine learning, other programming processes and utilises various statistical models to gather relevant enterprise, industry and market related data for risk analysis, to identify risks associated with a business asset. It then goes further to provide suggestions on how to overcome the difficulties via communications through on-screen dashboards.
The features and functions of any risk management software are manifold. However, all the good risk management software have something in common - what they do; which can be summarized into 5 areas, namely:
The software determines all the risks irrespective of the source, with the potential of preventing a business from achieving its objectives.
Risks identified are organised into categories. These categories could be grouped into sources of risks, business processes impacted by risks, occurrence, time etc. Risks are also broadly categorized as internal, external, or strategic. The ultimate goal of categorisation is to allow for quick understanding of the most vulnerable aspect of your business and also to guide the creation of effective risk mitigating strategies
The risks are “measured” by establishing their impact on the business and then ranked in order of severity.
Having identified and graded the risks, the risk management software would suggest options appropriate for mitigating the risk. Going further, the software assesses these options, and also assists in developing and implementing risk mitigation action plans.
Risk management software tracks the execution of all risk management processes all the while identifying and managing emerging risks. The software also ensures that findings are provided in an easy to store, access, and retrieve format for immediate or future use, transfer, or reference.
There are numerous areas and industries where risk management software is useful. Practically this tool can be used in any industry ranging from Commerce, Hospitality, to Health and Finance. Others include Construction, Supply chain, HR, Disaster management, Defence and the like.
You can use risk management software for the following:
The financial sector relies extremely on due diligence before decisions are made. Risk management software uses market data together with scenario simulation and analysis to help banks, insurance companies, stock brokers and the like to identify monetary risks, tease out good hedging opportunities, determine asset risk exposure and create financial risk reports among many other things.
Risk management software in the supply chain helps businesses to identify and assess risks such as related to supplier performance, storage, potential supply disruptors and fluctuations in prices of stocks plus mitigate these supply chain risks.
If you are managing a project, you will want to be proactive in your approach by making provisions for risks if you want your project to be successful. Risk management tools take the toil out of identifying, analysing and mitigating any kind of risks that may arise at any point in a project’s life-cycle.
Every organisation faces risks associated with their daily business processes. These risks could be from outside the organisation, related to customers, associated with their employees, due to failing operational processes or as a result of breakdown of technological assets or systems. Whatever the case, risk management software provides the intelligence that allows organisations to recognize and prevent these risks from halting their operations.
There are fewer industries that demand a safe and healthy environment, as well as meeting regulatory compliance and guaranteeing the wellbeing of occupants as healthcare. With risk management software not only can healthcare managers meet these challenges with ease, but they can also use it to improve operational efficiency, avoid liability, and ensure assets protection
From producing checklists, gathering on-site data, to generate reports and provide real-time alerts when construction companies and crews violate predetermined safety and industry standards, risk management software does it all. With it, construction companies and project managers can manage the safety of contractors, workers, and sites while steering clear of regulatory compliance fines.
Governments all over the world are looking to improve efficiency, transparency and cut cost in all their processes while being constrained by budget, time, and bureaucratic bottlenecks. Risk management software provides the answers to these needs through the provision of reliable and clearly defined processes that can be tracked and monitored. In the end, it leads to improved transparency, efficiency, and compliance in government operations.
In order to guard against hazards and improve student safety while making sure schools meet compliance, risk management software provides key functionality to identify and manage risks peculiar to educational facilities.
For consultants and consulting firms, credibility, time saving, and standing out are crucial for their profitability and success. All these and more, can be achieved with risk management software which allows them to improve the quality of their leads, reduce operational costs and increase customer satisfaction.
Every business is unique, and this also applies to risks. The importance of risk management software tends to increase with growing complexity of operations within a business
Risk management software can mimic the human working process. For example, it can track price changes in real time, retrieve data from a spreadsheet and send out notification to relevant departments or employees.
Basically, it helps to operate business in a more efficient way. This includes, for example, giving you a complete overview of the numerous risks that your enterprise has to face, and will enable you to find solutions to tackle and mitigate them more accurately.
Let’s take a closer look at some important benefits of risk management software
Being able to mitigate risk means you can prevent negative events that can affect your business from happening as much as possible. This way you will not only protect your brand from bad reputation, but also help enhance your market value and marketing appeal.
Even for an experienced risk analyst, it can take some time to develop and get a manual risk management process and workflow up and running. This means that a considerable amount of time is lost in setting up. With a risk management software, the large and complex tasks can be completed relatively quickly. Quality Data optimization
One of the main advantages of using a risk management software is that it allows you to standardise the collection of data from heterogeneous sources using ETL (Extract, Transform, Load). In addition, the tools also support seamless storage, distribution, evaluation and retrieval of data. This translates to higher quality data - a basis for incredible and accurate risk analysis.
The software allows users to complete risk management tasks and collaborate from any location in the world, via the internet. This can reduce business down-time, plus it fits well with the shifting trend towards remote working.
In terms of cost, the advantages are two-fold. One, automation means you will require fewer resources such as manpower and office stationery thus saving you on overhead costs. Secondly, the quality and accuracy of risk management is incredibly great; there is often no need for repeating the process, which is a costly waste of money and time.
For industries where compliance is vital, risk management software can help you meet legal requirements and protect you from costly fines and penalties.
Risk management software reduces errors, improves transparency and reliability in risk management processes. Together these help improve the chances of profit making for businesses down the road.
The use of risk management software is growing in popularity as businesses realize that it is too hard to manage risk manually. It is your duty to select and install the most appropriate software for your enterprise, in order to make a distinct difference in its performance and risk-mitigation.
So, it's not just about settling for just any program or tool - it also about finding the right solution.
But how do you know if such software is actually suitable for your business?
Choosing a risk management software should only be done after thorough assessment of your organisation’s requirements, as well as analysis of different applications out there in the market; the platforms and functionality the tools support.
Following are some tips to help a company or an organisation make the decision on choosing a risk management software tool.
● Have a clear purpose and goal for the risk management tool
● Clarify if the software can cover for the legal requirements that apply to your business and industry
● Look out for software that has customisable templates that can be adapted to your processes
● Software that provides training materials, tools and tutorials that show to train the staff and help with onboarding..
● There is no point in having risk management software that you do not enjoy working with; so always consider the user interface and user experience. An intuitive design trumps any other kind of UI/UX.
● Determine your budget in advance. Sign up for risk management software free trial first. This allows you to work out the kinks and determine if the tool is a fit for your business.
Risk management software undoubtedly creates potential to increase efficiency and reduces hassle in your risk management activities.
At Kiri Align, we have the right people and the right solution to find the areas within your business, to drive potential operational efficiencies. And to prove this, we are offering businesses a rare opportunity to use our risk management software for free for a limited period.
What are you waiting for? Turn potential risks into powerful insights that will drive your business forward today - Sign up for FREE now.
