The Three Lines of Defence is a model that the Financial Services Authority (which became the Financial Conduct Authority) encourages firms to adopt to provide clarity of responsibilities and accountabilities in between the three lines, and ensures effective independent oversight and assurance activities take place covering key decisions and processes.
Read MoreSharing Data Between Web Front Ends With Thread Safe Web Properties
Remember back in the old days when you only had one frontend? Remember when you thought that was complex?
Times have changed, and now in almost every production environment you have several frontends, and that’s good – they boost performance. With SharePoint it’s simple to add more frontends if you feel you are falling short, but consequently this has also taken other tasks to a new level of complexity.
The 5 Most Common (But Easily Avoidable) Errors That SharePoint Developers Make
Whether you are an experienced SharePoint developer, or just getting started, you have most likely suffered at least one of these frustrating mishaps and lost an hour or two before figuring out the cause of the problem. Luckily, on first encounter, what seems to be a tricky error is often easily solved.
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Press Release: StratexSystems' CEO and co-founder’s book Risk-Based Performance Management to be published in Arabic
21st May 2015, London, UK. StratexSystems, a market leading Enterprise GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) technology provider is pleased to announce that Risk-Based Performance Management: Integrating Strategy and Risk Management – the book authored by its CEO and co-founder, Andrew Smart – is soon to be published in Arabic.
Read MorePress Release: Another challenger bank selects StratexPoint as its prime risk monitoring solution
13th April 2015, London, UK. Another challenger bank has selected the StratexPoint Enterprise GRC solution from StratexSystems to monitor and manage its third party and conduct risk.
As well as meeting its first line of defence responsibilities, the client will use StratexPoint to proactively monitor risk across hundreds of processes that are outsourced to various third-party providers, ensuring that their performance is completely aligned with its own. This will enable StratexPoint to provide assurance to the Board and the regulator that it is delivering the right customer outcomes, and fully meeting its conduct risk management obligations.
Read MorePress Release: Leading European Financial Services Regulator chooses StratexPoint as its regulatory risk solution
2nd February 2015, London, UK. A leading European Financial Services Regulator has deployed the StratexPoint solution from StratexSystems to underpin its regulatory risk framework, as it seeks to enforce an intensive and intrusive supervisory approach in the wake of the 2008 credit crunch. The solution enables the regulator to deliver its statutory objectives, which are focused on maintaining the stability of the financial services sector, by supporting the supervisory activity across 30,000 regulated firms.
Read MorePress Release: UK Financial Services Regulator chooses StratexPoint as its regulatory risk management solution
StratexSystems’ software tool is set to take UK financial services industry to an improved level of maturity in risk management and strategy execution.
10th November 2014, London, UK. A UK Financial Services Regulator has deployed the StratexPoint solution from StratexSystems as an enterprise-wide Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) solution that underpins its regulatory risk framework. The software enables our client to deliver its statutory objectives, which are focused on maintaining the stability of the financial services sector by supporting the regulation of around 1,700 of the UK’s largest and most important financial services firms.
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Risk-Based Performance Management Book by StratexSystems CEO
Pulling together into a single framework the two separate disciplines of strategy management and risk management, this book, written by StratexSystems CEO- Andrew Smart provides a practical guide for organisations to shape and execute sustainable strategies with full understanding of how much risk they are willing to accept in pursuit of strategic goals.
The book is available from Amazon and Palgrave Macmillan.
Book Reviews:
‘This is the best handbook I have read on Risk Based Performance Management… It equips the manager with the knowledge, tools and road maps to successfully develop and implement RBPM in their organization’
−Kieran Rigby, CEO, GAB Robins Group, United Kingdom
‘Grounded in compelling research and rich practical experience, readers and their organizations will gain greatly from their insights.’
−Brian Brodie, Former CEO, Homeloan Management Limited, United Kingdom
‘Risk management has been often overlooked in strategy literature despite its immense importance. Smart and Creelman argue convincingly why, and in the light of recent crises, risk management and strategy should be integrated and show how.’
−Professor Hasan Cavusoglu, Ph.D. Sauder School of Business, Canada
‘Not only an essential read but a necessary culture for any business attempting to compete and succeed post the financial crisis era.’
−Amer Shashati, Enterprise Risk Consultant, Saudi Telecom Group, Saudi Arabia
‘Risk-Based Performance Management is a must read for all Strategy Execution practitioners. The book has made a tangible contribution towards successfully integrating Enterprise Risk Management with Enterprise Performance Management.’
−Rafael Lemaitre, Partner, ShiftIn Partners, United Arab Emirates
Businesses benefit from harnessing the opportunity in risk
"Businesses benefit from harnessing the opportunity in risk" - Originally posted HERE by Patricia O'Connell.
Risk has evolved over the last decade from “an exercise in ticking boxes” to an area of strategic focus that is an engine for corporate growth and profit as well as a force for societal change.
And corporations are directly profiting from changing their treatment of risk in their organizations. Linda Conrad, director of strategic business risk at Zurich North America told Advisen that two of its divisions saved 27 percent and 29 percent respectively on their risk-based capital (RBC) consumption as a result of reviewing the way it treated risk.
Conrad described the results of the insurer’s internal approach to risk with its focus on Enterprise Cost of Risk, which includes the risk expenses that derive from other business activities considered “less insurable.”
Using what it calls Total Risk Profiling, Zurich moved from an asset-based approach to a risk-based approach for operational risk quantification and capital allocation, Conrad said at the RIMS conference in Denver in April.
On a smaller but no less dramatic scale, a 2013 World Bank report describes how farmers manage risk profitably. Access to such tools as rainfall insurance means that they can invest in such necessities as fertilizer and seed rather than having to save their capital as a hedge against weather-related calamity.
On a more holistic level, Mangient CEO and author Andrew Smart notes that companies are increasingly looking at the relationship between risk and strategy.
One driver of this development was the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. “It was a failure of strategy and risk,” notes Smart, CEO of London-based Manigent and co-author of Risk-Based Performance Management: Integrating Strategy and Risk.
The nature of the crisis forced companies of all kinds around the world to look at the relationship between risk and strategy. Eventually, it escalated the movement from risk as loss prevention and mitigation to being seen, by necessity, as something that could enable growth.
And in turn, the increased scrutiny of risk led to regulation that aided the aggregation and harnessing of data that could be used in a different way. “Informed decisions impact the bottom line,” says Scott Addis, president and CEO of The Addis Group and Addis Intellectual Capital. “People typically tell a business leader what they want to hear rather than what they know to be true. Risk management based on knowledge leads to better decisions, which drives profit growth.”
Michael Christian, CEO of Risk Strategies Company observed that “organizations have more data at their fingertips than they did 10 years ago, as well as more tools to help risk managers and now CFOs analyze them and understand where risks are and how to address them.” The aggregation of the data puts risk more squarely in the C-Suite, he says. “The CFO will be looking at it more deeply, and the CFO should have a direct line to the CEO, making them more aware of risk’s impact on the bottom line.
“For smart companies, the establishment of minimum frameworks and ISO, COSO, and SOX have helped them identify the right path.”
The need for discipline and focus around data was “an unintended consequence” – a positive one — of the financial crisis, according to Todd Macumber, president of the risk services division of brokerage Hub International. “Some [companies] still take a ‘check the box approach’ to the requirements of regulation and others use it to their advantage to perform better.”
Michael Christian said: “Companies have been forced to focus on risk because you can’t afford to make a mistake. You can’t sweep it under a carpet. A positive byproduct of this, he believes, is a greater focus on product quality. “You don’t want it to come out in the news that you’ve had a major product or cyber failure or production problems.”
He cites the automobile manufacturers as a prime example of the dangers of not managing risk. “They’ve hidden some of their issues. And that hurts their brand, the whole enterprise, and their reputation.”
Finally, there needs to be alignment between risk and strategy, and according to Smart, that’s best achieved by assessing risk appetite.
“Companies need to decide how much risk they’re willing to take on to achieve their goals,” he said. “And often the most challenging conversations is ‘where are we not taking enough risk?’”
While risk has evolved to a strategic tool for some companies, its role will continue to grow as new risks emerge along with tools and techniques for management.
Yet both the greatest risk and the ability to overcome it is within the purview of any company, says Hub’s Macumber. “Whether you’re using Word and Excel or sophisticated risk-assessment tools, culture has to be part of the toolbox,” he said. “Without management and executive commitment and support, you won’t have the resources, the expertise, and the attitude to achieve the necessary results. Whether it’s risk prevention, risk management, or competitive advantage, it all begins with executive buy-in.”
StratexSystems Sponsor Risk-Based Performance Management Book Launch
StratexSystems are sponsoring the RBPM Book Launch on May 21st. Andrew Smart will be hosting the book launch for his newest publication: Risk-Based Performance Management - Integrating Strategy & Risk. The event will be held from 6pm-9pm at the Royal Suite, Grange Hotel, St Pauls, London. Both Andrew and co-author, James Creelman will talk briefly about their experiences implementing the RBPM methodology within real-world organisations. This will be followed by an authors Q&A session and refreshments.
Complimentary food & drink will be provided in the Royal Suite for the duration of the event. All our guests that attend this free event will receive a complimentary, signed copy of the book.
You can Register your attendance HERE.
