Protiviti and North Carolina State University’s ERM Initiative sixth annual risk survey of had responses from 728 directors and executives and recorded their rating of 30 macro-economic, operational and strategic risks, Executive Perspectives On Top Risks in 2018.

Overall risks

The report explains that, “One of the first questions an organisation seeks to answer in risk management is, ‘what our most critical risks?” It continues: “The organisation’s answer to this question lies the foundation for management to respond with appropriate capabilities for managing these risks stop this survey provides insights across different size of companies and across multiple industry groups as to what the key risks are expected to be in 2080 based on the import of the participating executives and board members.” The survey found that the top 10 risks for 2018 are:

Source & Copyright©2017 - Protiviti and North Carolina State Universtity ERM Initiative

Risks with highest level of increase

The survey showed that the biggest increases in concerns related to operational risks, resistance to change, culture and the entrance of new competitors, see below:

Source & Copyright©2017 - Protiviti and North Carolina State Universtity ERM Initiative

CFO concerns

The 89 chief financial officers in the survey had quite different views as the relative importance of the different issues – see table 6 - compoared to the CEOs and Boards.  The top five concerns reported by the CFOs were:

Source & Copyright©2017 - Protiviti and North Carolina State Universtity ERM Initiative

These concerns reflect the CFOs need to get things done in today’s volatile environment. (Interestingly, probably sadly, the survey did not identify corporate treasurers responses. Does this show the relative importance of corporate treasurers in an organisation?)

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CTMfile take: Definitely worth a download.