Commercial risk management trends and industry investment debates

Commercial & Current Trends

Commercial Risk Management

Commercial interest in risk management is on the rise. Employers wish to hire healthy employees to cut absenteeism and productivity issues. Lenders want borrowers with long, productive lives. Advertisers, marketers, and drug companies seek to tailor material to target healthcare providers and patient populations. Health insurers want to avoid high risk consumers. Educational institutions seek students with the greatest potential. Blackmailers attempt to extort payments from ones with the greatest potential harm from disclosures. People dating want to obtain information on a lover to evaluate health and longevity (Hoffman, 2007).

There is a significant up trend in client losses linked to security breaches that release personal identifiable information (Kelly, 2007). With the economy in a recession, more and more consumers are unable to pay bills. These issues are causing huge losses for companies and consumers that have to pay the bills and absorb losses. Computer crime losses doubled in 2006 due to craftier hackers and laws that now require organizations to disclose security breaches as well as provide adequate security measures to protect personal identifiable information.

As blackmailers and hackers continue to come up with craftier ways to access personal identifiable information for personal gain, companies are being challenged to invest more money into securing the information. Some of the issues companies face is with insiders having access to the information to perform job duties. Hiring practices have tightened in the efforts to obtain more honest employees with less absenteeism and higher productivity levels to hedge against the losses being obtained from the breaches and hackers. Consumers are also being evaluated for health and finance to ensure that accounts are paid in a timely manner to prevent future losses of revenues.

Current Trends in Risk Management

Current trends in risk management are more with liquidity risks that involve funding, market, and counter party risks (Faucheux, 2009). Having the necessary funding available for needed projects, such as higher security requirements and system upgrades, are becoming challenging for organizations. Market share can be lost due to security breaches and risks where they can damage the reputation of an organization. Counter party, or the ability of the consumers to pay bills and purchase goods and services, are also increasing challenges of organizations.

The future of risk management is facing increased emphasis (Heineman). Risk management is more essential to strategic objectives due to increasing volatility and complexity. Risk management capabilities are crucial to long-term growth and future profitability. Comprehensive enterprise risk management programs are being implemented and improved. C-level risk oversight functions are being established, such as Chief Risk Officer. Investments in risk management are expected to increase.