If risk management is to ever take centre stage in any boardroom, now is the time! Amid the coronavirus, pandemic risk management is critical to keep organisations afloat. Unfortunately, studies show that lots of SMEs aren’t approaching risk management in the right way. They don’t spend enough time thinking about the approaches to use to protect their organisations against risks, both now and in the future.
What should be done?
After identifying risks, and assessing their impact and likelihood, there are four ways to managing them. In risk management theory, they are called the 4 Ts.
- Treat
- Transfer
- Terminate and,
- Tolerate
- Risk Treatment
We are living in the days of coronavirus risk. To avoid contracting the virus, health experts are advising us to eat healthily and have regular exercise to stay fit. Social media platforms are awash with messages about taking plenty of fruits and vegetables. We are advised not to smoke and reduce alcohol consumption. That is called coronavirus risk “treatment”.
To “treat” the coronavirus risk at your workplace, you can;
- Ensure 2-meter (social) distancing
- Wear masks at all times
- Take temperature regularly and
- Conduct training on coronavirus prevention
If you (or one of your friends) contract(s) coronavirus, take the recommended drugs. This is “treatment” as we all know it.
Some risk treatment options are pre-emptive (and reduce the likelihood of a risk materialising), while others minimise the impact of the risk when it materialises.
For businesses, risk treatment is always a great place to start! One of our clients (a government authority) wanted to address the risk of fraud. They retained Summit Consulting to assess, identify (and address) the fraud training gaps as well as the need to invest in whistleblowing software. Consequently, our training helped them to slow down incidents of fraud. That is risk treatment. For our other clients, if fraud risk materialises, they contact us for thorough investigations – and this does wonders in reducing the negative impact. This too is treatment.
Fortunately, there are a large number of treatment options available to organisations – and in many cases, cost so little.
To learn more about our risk treatment tools, visit https://www.summitcl.com/summitrisk/
