The world we live in is full of risk, and that means when we run a business we need to account for these risks and do what we can to minimize them. The good news is that you can find out about the top five risks and how to manage them in the post below.
Reputational risk
In today’s connected world, your business’s reputation is everything. Unfortunately, that means negative press around the reputation of your business can do a lot of harm. With that in mind, reputation management online is a must.
This is where you have people specifically searching for any negative comments or press, and then taking action to minimize these by either having them taken down, using negative SEO, or countering them with positive articles.
Security risks
There are two main types of security risks that you need to defend your business from. The first is physical security risks which include things like having your premises broken into, having your assets stolen, or experiencing vandalism. You can defend your business from these with advanced alarm systems on the windows and doors of your premises, as well as installing key card readers and CCTV.
Then there is the other type of security risk that most businesses have to deal with – cybersecurity. Indeed, the more we rely on IT to make our businesses more efficient, the greater the risk that it will be used to compromise our security. The good news is there are things we can do to minimize any cyber security risk including regularly updating any software, using secure networks, and educating employees on best practices.
Operational risk
Operational risk is the danger that is caused by inefficient and faulty ways of running your company. Common examples of operational risk include errors on the part of your workers. Although the type of operational risk that causes businesses the most money tends to be fraud.
Fortunately, there are ways to reduce operational risk to your business, and most involve carefully considering the risks at play and coming up with a proactive solution for them. A great example of this is operational resilience planning which is used in the financial services industry. This is because it is designed to respond proactively to any threats to operations, and adapt and prevent them in the future.
Compliance risk
Compliance is all about making sure that your business meets the regulations that govern your sector. Usually, there are some pretty key motivations for doing this including avoiding consequences from your industry’s regulating body which can include large fines, and even shutting down your process.
The best way to make sure you deal with any compliance risk in your business is to educate yourself not only on the regulations that govern it, but what they mean in practice. To help you with this you may wish to engage an auditor that can tell you just how the regulations apply to your specific situation and give you recommendations on how to make sure you meet them.
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