Risk Management Process

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing." ~ Warren Buffet

There is nobody on this planet who has not taken a single risk in his or her life. Each and every person journeys through life taking some risk or the other. All that varies from person to person is the degree and amount of risk that is taken. For example, an unwell person not taking medicine is at a different risk as compared to a multinational company investing millions of dollars in a new line of business. Risk management is something that is applicable to one and all, regardless of whether you happen to be a businessman, an entrepreneur, a freelancer, a self-employed individual or a 9 to 5 working employee. For corporate biggies, a properly designed risk management process can often prove to be a life-saver. Here are some basics of risk management.

What is a Risk Management Process?
The concept behind a risk management process is extremely simple. It is the process of anticipating and analyzing risks and coming up with effective and efficient ways of managing as well as eradicating them. Here are the different steps that are involved in this process:

• Risk Identification: The first step involves identifying risks. Certain risks could be quite obvious whereas a few others may need a certain amount of anticipation. There could be various types of risks such as:
  • business risks
  • financial risks
  • commercial market-related risks
  • technology risks
  • short term risks, long terms risks
  • personal risks, etc.
  Try doing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis; it will give you systematic results which will prove beneficial in risk identification. Identifying and anticipating risks is extremely important as it sets the stage for all further action and steps as part of the risk management plan.
• Risk Analysis: This is the next step as part of the risk management process. Once all the risks have been identified, it is time to analyze and scrutinize each one of them. Risk analysis should be done both qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Determine how big a threat each risk is, what could be its consequence, its impact, etc. Each risk will have a likelihood factor i.e., a probability factor. On the basis of its impact and its likelihood factor, you can prioritize different risks as serious, moderate, mild, etc. Use a color coding system for easy graphical analysis. Once you have all this data laid out in front of you, you will be in a position to rank individual risks.
• Risk Evaluation: This basically involves comparing the identified and analyzed risks with your individual goals or your company's preset goals and objectives. You can then choose to grade risks and decide the future course of action to be taken based on how severely the risk is likely to impact your goals, objectives and targets.
• Risk Treatment and Contingency Plan: The next step involves preparing a risk treatment and contingency plan. It is vital from the perspective of enterprise risk management. What will you do if the risk materializes? Can you do something to overcome the risk? Can you take some measures to lessen its impact? You should think about all these questions and come up with a risk treatment and contingency plan for the same. It should include ways in which to control as well as overcome the risk conditions.
• Risk Monitoring: This is not the next step as such, rather it is something that should happen on a continuous basis at all stages of the risk management process. Have a RMMM (Risk Mitigation, Monitoring and Management) plan in place for the same. You can also make use of certain risk management softwares for this purpose. At the same time, there should be proper communication between the different departments involved in the risk management process. Communication is vital because it can affect the entire process both negatively as well as positively.

These were some basics regarding how a risk management process works. Depending on individual requirements and needs, it can always be customized provided you have enough knowledge and research data available at hand. Because, as the popular saying goes, "Risk varies inversely with knowledge."