Keeping up with Evolution: How to Adapt and Thrive

We all know what happened to the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period about 65 million years ago: they became extinct. Not keeping with evolving trends and changes to the industry could put you in the same position as the dinosaurs. But, it’s not too late to change! Adaptation and change are more needed than ever for risk managers, to help your organization – and your career – thrive.

Following traditions and habits isn’t all bad, however. Risk professionals have good reasons to maintain the techniques that have proven successful in managing risk for more than 50 years. The five steps in managing risk remain: identification, analysis, evaluation/quantification, mitigation/control, and monitoring. Those have not changed.

What has changed is the array of tools available to perform each of those steps. Digital innovation and mobile technologies are revolutionizing how risk managers can capture, organize, analyze and report on their organizations’ risk management program data. For example, the LineSlip platform lets risk professionals spend less time sifting through documents and more time where it counts – understanding exposures and mitigating them. Are you taking advantage of new tools to be a more effective risk manager? If not, you’re at risk of being called a dinosaur.

Speeding up risk management

Technology innovations have accelerated the pace of business, which in turn has increased expectations for the speed of response. Risk professionals must move faster at their jobs if they’re going to make a difference for their organizations. Risk managers cannot outrun risk, but they can speed up the fundamentals with the right tools.

An important starting point for accelerating risk management is to capture and organize risk data so that it’s accessible instantly – not dispersed throughout the organization’s operations or, even worse, only existing in paper form.

One risk professional whose employer was struggling to contain workers compensation losses realized that his department could not effectively prevent injuries if the employer’s safety practices and protocols remained in static binders. He implemented a digital repository and made sure workers were reminded to follow them. In addition, his department imposed a chargeback system that gave financial incentives to business unit leaders with good loss experience. Over time, this approach – more carrot than stick – cultivated a safer culture, and naturally workers comp losses decreased. Because business units incurred lower claim costs and kept workers productive, the employer could focus on growth and profitability.

Imagine the impact risk managers can have if they approach every exposure that way with effective tools – keeping risk data at their fingertips, sharing risk mitigation strategies and involving colleagues in seeing the impact of risks on their business. That’s decidedly not being a dinosaur. That’s creating a sustainable competitive advantage while making the risk management function even more valuable.

Next step in risk evolution

“That’s the way we’ve always done it” is possibly the worst answer to “Why do we do things that way?” Values and principles are foundational and can influence decisions, even when risk professionals are using tools and technologies they never have before. The next step in the evolution of risk professionals is to adopt the tools and processes that optimize good risk management practices. Business operations will keep getting faster, so risk managers need to move as fast as their organizations are, or they will get left behind. With the right technology solutions, risk managers can adapt and thrive.