Risk Consulting

Enterprise Risk Management

Every sector is laden with numerous challenges. In order to survive and grow, businesses need to understand their risk environment and develop strategies to mitigate the risks that may affect the survival or growth prospects of the business. Risk management is not about avoiding risk. Rather, It is about knowing the risks inherent in the business and pro-actively addressing them to minimize loss and enhance stakeholder value.

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is a process effected by Boards, Management and other personnel, to identify, monitor and mitigate potential events that may affect the entity. We help organizations identify, document and prioritize their key strategic, financial, compliance and operation risks that, eventually, have a bearing on their survival and growth. We also help create a framework to enable continuous monitoring and re-prioritization of the risks, so that management may develop mitigation plans in a timely manner. The ERM framework includes Risk Heat Maps and Dashboards for continuous monitoring of ‘Risks That Matter.’

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Operational Risk Assessment

Have you ever come across a fraudulent incident in your business? What about errors and mistakes that have had a negative financial impact, directly or indirectly? Didn’t the incident make you ‘react’, by altering the way the related activities were being conducted? What if your operational risks were ‘proactively’ anticipated and mitigating controls institutionalized? Wouldn’t the loss of time, effort and money be reduced, in such a scenario?

Broadly, business risks are actions or inaction that could adversely affect an organization’s ability to achieve process objectives and thus, hinder the implementation of business strategies. An effective system of controls and monitoring measures helps to manage business risks so that business objectives are achieved. For a business to effectively move towards attainment of its mission, it is imperative that all risk owners, including senior management and business units, integrate their efforts towards managing business risks.

Our Business Process Risk Assessment is focused on the business objectives of the organization, the most significant processes in place to achieve these objectives, and the risks related to these processes. Through Operational Risk Assessment, we help organizations identify, assess and document key risks that have an impact on operations. The Risk Register would help management incorporate controls within the respective business processes, in order to proactively and effectively manage the operational risks and reduce the probability and impact of negative incidents on the business.

Contract Compliance

Rising business complexities, innovative service offerings and increasing business aggression have resulted in contracts between parties becoming complex as well. Today, contracts are laden with numerous service level terms and key performance indicators as well as penalties for violation of the terms of arrangement. Apart from financial repercussions, contractual non-compliances can have negative impacts on strategic as well as operational relationships. Thus, it becomes important for both the contracting parties to effectively monitor fulfilment of the contractual obligations.

We help in assessing the effectiveness of an organization’s internal procedures, towards ensuring fulfilment of contractual obligations by the key vendors/ strategic partners. On the other hand, we also help organizations providing services assess the level of compliance to the contractual terms for their key customers.

Project Implementation Assistance

Every business house has aspirations to scale up. However, the expansion phase brings along daunting prospects, in the form of numerous tasks to be completed to get ‘there’. Aspects that need to be considered include infrastructure, plant and machinery, technology, people, processes and governing regulations. Each aspect needs to be planned well and execution needs to be monitored closely, in order to achieve the business objective and ensure seamless implementation of the new phase (project).

We can assist management throughout the project cycle, by planning the milestones in detail and monitoring implementation of the project. Apart from project plan, we help develop appropriate measures, dashboards and reports to provide actionable insights, highlighting the extent of completion of key milestones, hindrances with respect to key activities (red flags) and the likelihood of implementation of the project within planned timelines. Besides gauging the effectiveness of implementation, these dashboards would help identify specific areas that need management’s attention and focus.

Assessment of Internal Controls

Over the last decade or so, with the downfall of some of the large entities, we have witnessed a paradigm shift with respect to increased accountability of management and focus on improving corporate governance, globally. Market regulators have also mandated stringent requirements, with the objective of restoring investor confidence in the capital markets. Notable regulations include the Sarbanes Oxley Act (for entities governed by the US SEC), the Clause 49 requirements (for entities listed in India) and the New Companies Act, which lays stress on the term ‘internal controls’.

Besides the statutory mandates, we have witnessed a growing need for assessment and implementation of internal controls amongst the MSMEs. Ambitious entrepreneurs and business houses are realizing the benefits of internal controls, especially their impact on the ‘speed of growth’.

Besides assisting companies develop a framework for compliance with the internal control requirements, we also assist businesses in assessing the efficacy of their internal control environment. Our assistance does not stop on the report, rather, we support the business owners and their teams implement the recommended controls.

Internal Audit

Given the increasing speed of change and dynamism in today’s business environment, organizations must identify, assess and mitigate emerging risks, while also keeping a check on their existing business and control environment. Through internal audit, we help an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance processes.

Our risk based internal audit solution, primarily, focuses on the inherent risks involved in the activities and systems. It provides an assurance to the Board that risk management processes are managing risks effectively, in relation to the defined risk appetite level. The assurance part of our work involves telling managers and governors how well the systems and processes, designed to keep the organization on track, are working. We complement this with consulting, to help improve those systems and processes, where necessary. Unlike traditional audit, our solution focuses on continuous improvement, which is the need of the hour.