EY’s global governance, risk and compliance (GRC) survey 2015 found serious shortcomings in the risk management policies in more than three-quarters of companies, with 77% of businesses only evaluating their risk profile annually, limiting their ability to react to changes to their risk landscape.

Moreover, financial risk is the number one risk for corporates. The top five risks, according to the survey, are:

1. financial,
2. operational,
3. regulatory,
4. cybersecurity and
5. reputational.

The survey found that many organisations are not using governance, risk and compliance technology: 46% don't use it at all, with many relying on scorecards, dashboards and other forms of reporting to executive management. However, 78% of the survey respondents prepare management dashboards annually or quarterly, suggesting that there is potential for companies to provide more frequent data that gives insight into specific risks. EY's global risk transformation leader, Matt Polak, said: “Clearly, organizations are making progress in understanding the myriad of risks they face, but there is still a lot of work to be done to make risk a more integral part of strategic discussions.”

The survey polled 1,196 C-suite leaders, board audit committees, and assurance and compliance executives across all major industries in 63 countries.

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CTMFile Take: These results will come as no surprise to corporate treasurers. Financial professionals are acutely aware of financial risks, perhaps more than ever before. However, it's a timely reminder of the importance of clearly communicating those financial risks to the board and executive management on a regular basis – and also of the absolute importance of financial risk to the health of the company as a whole.