Applying Collective Intelligence in Risk Management

I was reading a risk management blog today and was very impressed with the technical article covering various aspects of solvency and valuation of insurance industry. As I was reading it, my mind analyzed the information with respect to various laws, sections, cases etc. After finishing reading it, I took a breath and thought- “I actually felt like referring to various books to understand the article, will a regular business operation employee actually understand it?” This resulted in a depressing thought- “I do the same, to show my knowledge; I mention sections and case laws of various acts which leave business people stumped.” Well, in my defense I will say, it gives a heightened sense of satisfaction and success.

Somewhere I feel risk managers ( referred to as RM) are having their cake and eating it to. The primary responsibility of managing risks is of business operation team. The RM’s role is of a support function, a facilitator to the business. The business managers are not being provided with the necessary information, knowledge and tools to proactively manage their risks. Let me explain why I am making this statement.

In their role as auditors, they are focused on what went wrong in the past rather than equip the business managers to how to deal with the future. It is a feedback rather than feed-forward system working. The other aspect is that they in their role as advisors issue guidelines and policies without the complete involvement of the business people.

Scenario 1: Let me take a scenario here of implementation of information assurance policies. The RM will discuss the overall requirement with the business managers, prepare the policy, take feedback regarding it and then issue the final policy. Then they will tell business users to implement it. Since in quite a few areas implementation may not be possible, exceptions will be granted to the business users. In nutshell, around 75% of the policy only will be implemented.

In both these roles the involvement of business operations team is minimal at the commencement of the project. They are expected to implement the recommendations.

Considering the above mentioned short comings in the above mentioned approach, I wished to explore the concept of collective intelligence and its applicability to risk management functions.

As a first step, let us understand the nature of information and intelligence which risk managers require to conduct their jobs:

1) Organizational Intelligence- Information regarding processes, structure, culture and technology. These they normally get from the business managers through interviews and review of standard operating procedures.

2) Commercial Intelligence- Information regarding the external environment- customers, suppliers and competitors. This information they obtain from interviews with business managers, customers and suppliers. Other sources are various media and research reports published.

3) Technical Intelligence – Information regarding the various laws, acts, methodologies and tools applicable for risk management. RMs have the knowledge on how to conduct the risk management while using this information appropriately.

As can be seen business managers have more information and knowledge on two of the three intelligence capabilities required for conducting risk management. In a more collaborative approach the risk managers should be able to impart their skill specialization to the business managers effectively.

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