According to Ready.gov, risk assessments spot potential problems, but a business-impact analysis identifies how these problems might affect a particular business. Since these two tasks go hand-in-hand, it is useful to describe them together. These are the three steps of a risk assessment and business impact analysis:
After analyzing all of these reports, whoever acts as the company's risk manager can try to mitigate each risk. For example, a safety program, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers might reduce the risk of accidental fires. Better security could reduce the chance that hackers can steal valuable data. Of course, no company can take steps to totally eliminate every threat, but these are examples of good first steps.
Next, this assessment will help companies buy the right insurance to protect them against the things that they cannot control. The more steps that companies do take to minimize threats, the cheaper that insurance premiums are likely to be. Risks assessments and impact analysis can help prevent losses and result in lower insurance premiums. For more ways to improve your risk assessment skills try these tips.
On the topic of insurance, many agencies and insurers provide risk management services to their clients. Since these professionals make it their business to understand and reduce the risks that their clients face, they are often in a very good position to offer advice.
At Ventiv Technology, we are a risk management software company and we've been in the business of helping all sorts of companies manage risk for over four decades. Our ERM software solutions can help integrate risk management into every facet of business operations. Find out more about Ventiv and how we can make your company less vulnerable to risks.