The relationship between risk and performance improvement is an increasingly complex and central business challenge, with business performance directly connected to the recognition and effective management of risk.
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This is the third in our series of reports that highlight the most critical issues in the telecommunications sector. The report includes details of the top 10 risks for the telecommunications sector, how risks are evolving in the sector, and the ‘Below the radar’ risks for telecommunications. These are the issues we think are likely to...
The failure experienced by many large scale change initiatives is all too familiar. In the rush to deliver a programme on time, 'change management' can become an afterthought, consisting of a hastily conceived communications plan that fails to excite employees.
This report argues that an effective leadership team should have a change architect: someone...
The performance of the UK in securing foreign direct investment (FDI) continues to be extremely strong and a remarkable economic success story. Despite the recession which was global in nature and had a large impact on the UK economy, FDI projects recorded in the UK remained at virtually the same level as in 2008. As a result of this performance, the...
Although companies worldwide have been dealing with opportunistic cyber-attacks for years, many now find themselves the target of more sophisticated and concentrated efforts, known as advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks. APT attacks are focused on a single target, lasting until “they are in,” and are meant to collect information over...
The 11th Global Fraud Survey has challenged those responsible for leading the response to corporate fraud and corruption to look back over two of the most difficult years in the economic cycle in living memory. The feedback has been both candid and revealing in an area of business risk that is always more sensitive to economic decline. Once again,...
A common risk language in an organisation is critical. Without it, companies will be slow in detecting and reacting to new risks and they miss out on the chance to transform risks into opportunities.
A common risk language in an organisation means shared definitions, company-wide priorities and a common culture of risk awareness....
What is a company’s risk appetite, i.e., which risks does it want to take in the pursuit of rewards?
The board must define this appetite based on the risks and rewards that come with various scenarios and alternatives.
An explicit, comprehensive discussion of risk appetite should form part of any process...
“What are your three most profitable risks?” Risk-taking is part and parcel of entrepreneurship and business: no risk, no reward. The strategic challenge for business in risk management is therefore not to avoid all risks at all costs, but to gain a competitive edge by transforming risks into opportunities.
To that end, directors should...
Brussels may solve, or at least paper over, the sovereign debt troubles in Greece, but financial markets are now also focusing attention on other troubled nations on the periphery of the euro-zone. Leeway for addressing fiscal problems may be constrained by the halting pace of recovery in the region's stronger core, notably in Germany.
After...
Investors get out their chequebooks for electric-car start-ups
THE idea of the "Netscape moment", a fund-raising that signals the spawning of a whole new industry, is dear to Silicon Valley types who think back fondly to the browser firm's spectacular initial public offering in 1995. So it was not surprising that in late January Shai Agassi,...
Business will have to learn how to manage an ageing workforce
MARTIN AMIS and Christopher Buckley are writers who are entering their silver years and are worried about the costs of an ageing population. Mr Amis, who has a new novel out, recently compared the growing army of the elderly to "an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the...
Albeit painful, progress ultimately results from crisis. The current downturn is causing companies to challenge their risk management processes and ask how they can further improve their risk management efforts. Against this backdrop, we conducted a survey to provide a snapshot of the current risk environment and to understand organizational...
Over the past decade, globalization has helped many companies improve their competitive positions. Organizations that pushed their supply chains to become ever longer were often rewarded with lower input costs and increased sales to emerging markets. But today, growth in many global economies has slowed, and the economic prosperity of the past...
This new world is competitive in ways that it’s never been before. Ask any company’s customers how many times they’ve been approached and aggressively pursued by their competitors. And then ask that company if it can be optimistic about keeping its customers happy on a day-today basis. The number of competitors has increased...
Outsourcing: time to review the value in a recession
The current economic crisis puts pressure on expectations from third-party providers. At a time when the natural tendency may be to shut off contact with the outside world to focus on core competencies, companies may feel trapped in long-term outsourcing arrangements with external suppliers. These...
Creating and protecting a unique and secure identity for citizens or customers is a major challenge for public and private sector organisations. The rise of identity theft in the internet age is well documented. Recent figures reported a 36% increase in the number of victims of impersonation during the first nine months of 2009 – when compared...
Ernst & Young has organised a series of breakfast briefings that assemble leading CFOs from a variety of industries with specialists from Ernst & Young. The following summary encapsulates the main points of the discussion, which was conducted under Chatham House rules.
The session started with an overview of the research conducted by Ernst...
In the course of a downturn, businesses put cost reduction at the top of their agendas. In a recent Ernst & Young Opportunities in adversity report, cost reduction was identified as one of the principle initiatives undertaken by global enterprises. We now consider the next logical steps: once savings have been implemented, does a business consign...
CFOs face a broad series of competing priorities ranging from effectively managing legal and regulatory compliance, managing complexity and information technology, managing short term profitability and driving those strategic decisions that underpin medium and longer term performance.
Protecting shareholder value has risen as a key focus area in...
The recent downturn has put unprecedented pressures on businesses, with the Finance function being one of the places where organisations have experienced the effects. The cost of finance has fallen relative to the revenues of most organisations.
The economy is showing signs of recovery and businesses are turning their attention to new market opportunities....
The role of information technology (IT) is evolving. IT is being called on to do more than simply ‘keep the lights on’. Board members, C-suite leaders and other stakeholders are looking for IT to make even greater contributions to the success of the enterprise – to create value, rationalise costs and more effectively manage risks...
The rise of complex, integrated supply chains, along with the recent global downturn, has increased the probability that critical suppliers will encounter supply disruptions and financial duress. The consequences – from an ability to deliver on promises to customers, to losing access to a supplier’s intellectual property – can be...
The current financial crisis is having a fundamental impact on the outsourcing environment. Companies may feel trapped by long-term contracts agreed in market conditions far removed from today’s economic reality.
Report highlights
Outsourcing has a clear role to play in helping manage the impact of the current economic turmoil...
Over the last year, we have witnessed unprecedented changes in the global economic environment. Increased pressure to reduce costs, coupled with increased government and industry regulations, has presented new risks and challenges — challenges that many organizations are now struggling to address and which can significantly affect their information...
The world is still reeling from the biggest financial downturn since the 1930s. Trillions of dollars have been lost, millions of people have become unemployed and the global economy has all but shuddered to a halt. During the past two years, the seemingly infinite pool of global funding that delivered a decade of cheap and abundant credit has dried...
