By: Duncan StephensonPublished: April 10, 2020Risk Blogs
If the entire system went down, it would cost the US $1bn a day, and worldwide, much much more. GPS (Global Positioning System), which is maintained by the US Air Force, is ingrained into daily life, being used to guide ships and planes, cranes and trucks, farming, mining and drilling – extreme dependency, you might […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: April 2, 2020Risk Blogs
Incidents are a component of any risk management methodology. This means having an approach to responding to incidents, to recording them, and to reviewing them to build future resilience. An additional part to this is to be outward looking: when something serious happens elsewhere, to another organisation, even in another sector or country, then this […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: April 1, 2020Risk Blogs
Indicators provide warnings that risks may be about to crystallise. Single indicators can provide information on complex systems or scenarios if chosen correctly, but they do need to be checked for validity. Dung beetles have been monitored for years as indicators for complex eco-systems. Their numbers can provide an indicator of the impact of activities […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: March 20, 2020Risk Blogs
You take risk to get reward, and if you are dissatisfied with the reward you are getting, then you might decide to take more risk. You might decide to do something to increase your company’s profit, or to earn more money from a job or from an investment. But you have to understand the nature […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: March 15, 2020Risk Blogs
The Mind Palace is an ancient memory system made popular not long ago by the UK TV series Sherlock. The idea is that you remember things by placing them along a route around a house, or villa, or any journey you regularly make e.g. a run, or a round on a golf course. Placing the […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: March 10, 2020Risk Blogs
A bubble occurs when there is a sustained rise in price of something beyond what you might believe is its normal value. It occurs when people believe that the price will continue to rise, and so it does rise… until it collapses. In the early 1700s, the South Sea company was established in London to […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: March 5, 2020Risk Blogs
In a risk assessment, one tool you can use is a risk universe. A risk universe is a list of the potential risks that your organisation, or a similar one in your line of business, might face. The risks are organised into categories such as financial, operational, people, and strategic. Under the people category, you […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: March 5, 2020Risk Blogs
Question: How do you get a million dollars? Answer: Start with a billion and go into the airline business. Nineteen airlines went bust last year and today, FlyBe. Poor risk management has been cited as the prime reason. Hedging enables you to reduce uncertainty via financial instruments such as futures, swaps and options that can […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: March 4, 2020Risk Blogs
Another Black Swan event, 12 years since the last one and potentially just as devastating, but for totally different reasons. Coronavirus has been called a Black Swan event. The term was popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and refers to an unexpected event, one that could not have been predicted, and that has a very large […]
By: Duncan StephensonPublished: February 28, 2020Risk Blogs
Banks are already supposed to report on what they consider the climate change risks are to their loans, their investments and to their business model. The same will go for all publicly listed companies in the next two years. The driver for this will be Mark Carney who becomes UN Special Envoy for Climate Action […]