Client Overview:
Cardiff Metropolitan University is a leading UK university based in Cardiff, Wales, with a strong focus on innovation, education, research, and professional development. Serving thousands of students across multiple academic schools and departments, the University operates within a complex organisational environment where effective governance, strategic oversight, and risk management are essential.
As part of its commitment to strengthening organisational resilience and improving visibility across risks and controls, Cardiff Metropolitan University selected Symbiant’s Risk Management Software to support a more connected and mature approach to enterprise risk management across the institution.
Primary Industry Type:
Higher Education / Public Sector Education / University
Headquarters:
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Cardiff Metropolitan University Chooses Symbiant Risk Management Software
For higher education institutions, managing organisational risks across multiple schools, departments, and operational functions can become increasingly complex. Spreadsheet-based processes and disconnected systems often create challenges around visibility, reporting consistency, collaboration, and oversight, particularly when risks need to be aligned with broader academic and strategic objectives.
Cardiff Metropolitan University was looking for a more strategic and scalable approach capable of supporting the University’s qualitative risk assessment methodology while improving visibility and strengthening risk maturity across the institution.
By implementing Symbiant’s Risk Management Software, the University gained a connected and highly customisable platform designed to support both operational oversight and a more mature, institution-wide approach to risk management.
The Challenge
Before implementing Symbiant, Cardiff Metropolitan University managed corporate risks primarily through spreadsheets.
As risk management requirements evolved, the organisation required a more advanced and centralised approach capable of:
- Replacing spreadsheet-based risk management
- Improving organisational risk visibility
- Enhancing risk maturity across departments
- Supporting qualitative risk assessment methods
- Linking risks to non-financial and academic objectives
- Simplifying reporting and heat map generation
- Reducing training and support burden
- Enabling more flexible reporting across schools and business units
The University needed a system capable of adapting to the way higher education organisations assess and manage risk, rather than forcing rigid processes or quantitative-only scoring models.
Why Cardiff Metropolitan University Chose Symbiant
One of the key drivers behind the University’s decision was Symbiant’s ability to support qualitative risk management approaches while offering significantly greater flexibility and reporting capabilities compared to spreadsheet-based processes.
“Having previously managed all our Corporate risks via spreadsheets we are currently migrating our risk registers onto the Symbiant Risk Management System.”
The University also highlighted the broader impact the platform was already having on organisational risk maturity:
“The capabilities of the software are allowing us to considerably enhance the level of risk maturity across the University. It is allowing us to transform the management of our organisational risks to the extent that our Risk Management Policy is now being reviewed to ensure it takes into account the potential of the new software.”
Flexible Risk Scoring Designed Around Higher Education
Unlike many rigid systems, Symbiant allowed Cardiff Metropolitan University to maintain a qualitative risk assessment approach aligned to the nature of higher education and academic objectives.
“As a Higher Education Institute our risks are, on-the-whole, assessed and evaluated on a qualitative rather than quantitative basis – Symbiant is able to accommodate this and allows us to clearly link risks to our non-financial, academic objectives.”
You can fully customise the scoring to match your organisation’s existing qualitative or quantitative methods and terminology. Reports and heat maps are equally flexible, and if needed, risk scores can be aggregated from related entries across your registers, giving you complete control over how risk is evaluated and presented.
Intuitive Design and Easier Adoption
Cardiff Metropolitan University also highlighted the intuitive nature of the platform and the ease with which users were able to adopt the system.
“Symbiant is also proving highly customisable to our needs with staff finding the user interface intuitive and familiar. This has considerably reduced the training and support burden as we roll it out.”
Symbiant is a flexible, agile, robust platform designed to help organisations collaborate, centralise insights, and tailor the system to their exact requirements. All views, reports, and dashboards can be customised.
You can assign specific layouts and permissions by user role or division, ensuring each person only accesses the data they need. Charts and dashboards provide real-time insights at a glance. You can click to filter, drill down into categories, or create division-specific summaries.
Comprehensive Reporting and Greater Risk Visibility
One of the most significant benefits for the University was the ability to generate comprehensive and highly flexible reporting across schools, departments, and business units.
“The extremely comprehensive reporting suite allows our schools and business units far more freedom and scope to identify and record their local risks since the large amounts of data generated can be easily and almost instantly reported upon in many ways including heat maps and colour coding. This is enabling our risk management to become far more comprehensive.”
Symbiant’s advanced reporting suite gives schools, departments, and business units the flexibility to manage their own risks—while still contributing to a unified organisational view. With instant access to custom reports, heat maps, and colour-coded visuals, users can easily analyse large volumes of data, spot patterns, and take informed action. It’s risk reporting made powerful, intuitive, and fully adaptable to your structure.
Agile Development and Responsive Improvements
The University also highlighted the speed and responsiveness of Symbiant’s ongoing product improvements.
“Updates and improvements to the software are regular and reliable with Symbiant having introduced some minor requested enhancements within just a few days.”
We’re constantly improving our platform—guided by real client feedback. Enhancements are developed in-house, which means we can respond quickly and release updates without long delays. Whether it’s a minor tweak or a new feature, our clients benefit from a system that stays current, agile, and aligned to their evolving requirements.
Symbiant Modules Supporting Cardiff Metropolitan University – Solution Reviews
★★★★★ Rated 5/5
Helping organisations improve risk visibility, enhance reporting, strengthen oversight, and centralise risk management activities.
Risk Modules
★★★★★ Rated 5/5
Supports structured risk identification, assessment, and monitoring activities within one connected environment.
★★★★★ Rated 5/5
Provides collaborative risk identification and treatment planning capabilities.
★★★★★ Rated 5/5
Supports governance, control management, and accountability activities.
★★★★★ Rated 5/5
Provides a central repository for incident reporting and management.
★★★★★ Rated 5/5
Supports structured assessments, evidence gathering, and reporting activities.
Key Outcomes
Following implementation, Cardiff Metropolitan University achieved:
