‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ will demand new risk management priorities - Airmic

Airmic has called on the risk community to realign its priorities in response to the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' highlighted by the recent Global Risk Report.

The report, published by the World Economic Forum,  talks of a "forceful departure" from previous survey findings as the risks are starting to manifest themselves "in new, sometimes unexpected ways and harm people, institutions and economies".

"Advances in technology and rapid digitization are fundamentally transforming societies, economies and ways of doing business," says the report. Although the new environment creates unprecedented opportunities, it warns that risks are becoming more elusive, making them harder to identify and manage.

"The risk priorities identified by the WEF are in line with the work Airmic has carried out in recent years to identify the causes of corporate failure and the conditions needed to achieve resilience," said technical director Julia Graham. "Resilience will be even more of an imperative for businesses going forward as things can move with alarming speed, driven by the ease of communication, flat business models and unprecedented levels of inter-connectivity and inter-dependence. Our members' role will be to help organisations harness the power of the new digital economy by providing strong enterprise risk management support."

The association also welcomed the Global Risk Report's emphasis on the challenges of global security. "Although the core skills of risk management remain the same, the environment in which they are applied is changing rapidly. It all adds up to an exciting opportunity - but also an unprecedented challenge," said Graham.

Airmic is currently working on a project to advance the understanding of digital risk. Its highly acclaimed risk reports have included Roads to Ruin and Roads to Resilience. It will be holding a conference on wider Enterprise Risk Management issues in the autumn.

Julia Graham