Six Part Risk Management Framework to overcome Business Challenges Risk management refers to the “identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities.� Risk management is becoming increasingly important these days due to the complexity of today’s business environment, increased interaction between companies and the introduction of newer regulations. However, the new data protection laws & regulations and risk management requirements have exposed several internal structural flaws in the existing programs of many organizations, especially those that employ a traditional siloed approach to risk and compliance management. Here is a look at the most commonly seen business challenges. Use of multiple, disparate processes and tools for different organizational functions such as Compliance, Security, Privacy, Business Continuity, Audit, and IT Risk leading to high information security risk. Arbitrary compliance where business units are not provided risk-based options. Duplication of efforts due to the lack of centralized reporting/control, Ill-defined compliance criteria, inconsistent metrics and risk reporting, and inability to perform trending and analytics. Lack of awareness in the user community (employees, contractors, and customers). Enterprise risk management framework is therefore crucial as it helps to effectively deal with: Silo based management of information security Rapid changes to business and security landscape Lack of correlation between risk and control decisions Inability to depict value to business Hence, enterprises need to collaborate with a service provider who can assist with the planning, developing, establishing, implementing, monitoring and sustaining a comprehensive governance, risk and compliance program. Given below is the six parts process of risk management framework implemented by a leading service provider. 1. Establish an IS strategy in alignment with business goals, trends in security & privacy landscape and prevailing priorities. 2. Establish a security and/or privacy governance structure; depending on the maturity & situation, these may be independent structures. 3. Integrate governance, risk and compliance management processes. 4. Establish the assurance processes (audits, security and/or privacy assessments). 5. Automate the GRC processes & integrate with other business/business support applications. 6. Manage the implementation and day-to-day operations of the framework. A marine travel company, for instance, faced several challenges in managing multiple compliances including PCI DSS, ISO 27001 based ISMS and other client security policies. They collaborated with a service provider who
helped to mitigate the challenges by creating an integrated compliance framework for effective ongoing compliance management, effective information risk management and reduced time for client audits reporting to management. Thus, with a good partner, enterprises can prudently deal with the ever-growing number of risks to information security; while also effectively and efficiently undertake business transformation efforts to meet compliance mandates. Read more on - Steps to Improve Information Risk Management, Identity and Access Management Services