ERM Made Easy: 4 Quick Wins for Risk Practitioners

Risk management has officially arrived as a top leadership priority.

A growing number of organizations now assign this responsibility to their general counsel, demonstrating the evolution of the GC’s role from compliance head to cross-functional strategic advisor. Among boards, nearly half of directors surveyed by the Diligent Institute said they’re discussing it more frequently than in the past, with 77% reporting regular discussions around emerging risks.

Another statistic underscores the need for action: Nearly half (45%) of directors said they need better benchmarking data to strengthen their oversight.

Despite these trends, too many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) aren’t giving enterprise risk management (ERM) the investment, in terms of time or technology, that it deserves.

Read on for a deep dive into their challenges and barriers, along with four ways the right solutions can turn obstacles into quick wins, at the pace and scale today’s ERM environment demands.

The SME ERM Conundrum

SME leaders have many reasons for resisting new ERM technology, including limited budgets, competing priorities and insufficient IT knowledge for overseeing it all.

For GCs and risk leaders, the barriers are economic. They recognize the importance of a structured ERM program, but how can they justify the investment in risk management software? And how can they make sure whatever technology they purchase delivers tangible value, rather than just sitting on the shelf or draining resources with poor user adoption?

Then there’s the competing conundrum of knowing where to start. What risks are the most urgent to identify, assess and manage — and therefore most essential to the foundation of the organization’s ERM program?

Meanwhile, the risk and legal teams who’ll be using the software have practical concerns. Even though their current tools like spreadsheets are fragmented, compromising consistency and accuracy, they’re familiar, and such familiarity helps them balance competing priorities as a lean workforce.

A new solution might promise more unity and efficiency across risk identification, assessment and mitigation, and help them evolve from administrators to strategic advisors, but will it save time? Will it be easy to learn and use? Or will the time and hassle involved in moving from one world to another leave them even more vulnerable to threats on the horizon?

These reasons are all understandable. But the resulting inertia leaves these organizations managing risk via a status quo of disparate spreadsheets, disconnected tools and manual processes — and makes them vulnerable.

By sticking with an ineffective and outdated approach, risk and legal teams are unable to consistently flag vulnerabilities across the enterprise, and GCs and department heads are unable to communicate the organization’s risk posture to the board in a timely and effective fashion.

The repercussions then fall like dominoes: red flags detected too late lead to unmanaged risks and ineffective resource allocation. And when critical risks remain ineffectively addressed, SMEs may find their operations disrupted, reputation compromised and bottom line damaged by regulatory fines, lost revenues and more.

With enterprise risk management today, the organization that hesitates is lost. But organizations that are able to generate quick wins from these challenges will find themselves ahead of the game.

This is where Diligent AI Risk Essentials comes in.

AI-Powered Technology Built for the Challenge

Diligent AI Risk Essentials is designed to fulfill one simple, powerful promise: ERM doesn’t have to be overwhelming, even for a smaller organization with limited time and resources, and wrangling risk management doesn’t require a large budget for procuring new technology or a big team to implement and operate it.

Diligent AI Risk Essentials brings data, automation and superhuman analysis to the challenge. It recognizes the need for speed in risk management, with guided onboarding that gets it up and running in less than seven days. And it generates quick wins in the areas lean organizations need them the most: figuring out what to track, transitioning out of siloed spreadsheets and building internal knowledge as usage of the tool grows.

Quick Win 1: Identifying the Right Risks to Track

Establishing a risk profile and register is an essential foundation for any risk management program. What trends in the landscape pose the greatest threat to regulatory compliance, organizational reputation and the bottom line? What are peers and competitors tracking in their efforts?

But status quo processes too often leave SMEs with a shaky base to build upon.

A few longtime leaders may rely on anecdotal evidence or even hunches based on their personal observations and industry experience. Such a DIY approach may limit the view or exclude important data and trends outside of the team’s immediate experience.

Alternatively, the risk team might spend a prohibitive number of work hours manually collecting risk data, leaving little time for the actual analysis and creation of a risk registry.er.

AI Risk Essentials gets SMEs off on the right foot. It provides immediate (and exclusive) access to more than 120,000 risks filtered by company, industry and category. The source: all of those SEC 10K filings that would take human risk teams prohibitively long to pore through.

With the power of AI, SMEs can avoid potential blind spots in their risk profile, get the ground truth from trusted industry sources and get on their way toward building a risk register.

Quick Win 2: Moving From Siloed Spreadsheets to Streamlined Processes

Identify. Assess. Mitigate. These may seem like three simple steps. But outdated tools make them unnecessarily complicated, slowing down the risk management process when speed is needed most, like regulatory filing deadlines, strategic decisions and stakeholder questions.

“Dueling spreadsheets” open the door to version control issues. Manual data entry increases the risk of human errors. And siloed systems impede the data-driven insights a company’s leaders depend on for swift, precise decisions and action.

Diligent AI Risk Essentials brings all the pieces together and puts them in one place. A streamlined risk management workflow simplifies risk identification, assessment and mitigation — a direct and deliberate contrast to overly complex GRC offerings in the marketplace. Meanwhile, a centralized repository for data and assessments ensures a single source of truth — one that interactive heatmaps make easy to see, share and digest.

Quick Win 3: Generate Value in Days, Not Months

“We don’t have time for something new.” Too often, this excuse keeps SMEs stuck in the past. They may have visions of delayed or failed technology implementations still dancing in their heads, but the status quo is a dangerous place to be in today’s world of economic uncertainty and emerging risk.

Diligent understands that time is money, especially when dealing with risk. We built AI Risk Essentials to roll out in just under one week, with an AI-powered three-step set up that takes the pain and time out of new technology deployment.

As a result, teams see value almost immediately, accelerating decisions and improving oversight from day one.

Quick Win 4: Upskill the Team as You go

Finally, AI Risk Essentials addresses the knowledge gap that holds too many SMEs back —education on risk management best practices and familiarity with the tool itself. Users get one-stop access to Diligent’s template and education library, which includes onboarding content and Diligent Institute’s new ERM Certification.

What’s more, this training is designed with practicality and results in mind. Building team knowledge doesn’t require costly external advisors or involve a lengthy learning curve.

Scale with Confidence, Through a Single Source

AI Risk Essentials is just the beginning of your ERM journey. The next step, an upgrade to Risk Pro offers enhanced reporting, workflows and risk collaboration. Then, when you’re ready, Risk Plus deepens integrations and automation into enterprise-wide governance.

As an added plus for busy leaders: It’s all available through one vendor and platform, with full lifecycle support.

Ready to make the move to streamlined, unified, future-focused risk oversight? Schedule a demo of AI Risk Essentials today.