The year 2020 has brought on a host of unprecedented challenges for businesses of all sizes. The global pandemic has brought to light the importance of a robust risk management plan for even the most unexpected situations. It is becoming increasingly clear that organizations must strive to develop a risk-aware culture. Further, they can improve decision making and performance through an integrated view of how the business manages its unique set of risks. Organizations can achieve this through an Integrated Risk Management (IRM) program.

Research and advisory firm Gartner defines IRM as “the combined technology, processes and data that fulfill the objective of enabling the simplification, automation and integration of strategic, operational and IT risk management across an organization”. NewRocket helps you achieve this level of Integrated Risk Management with powerful tools like ServiceNow, connecting all of your people and processes with simplified workflows that help you shore up operational resiliency.

Many companies still rely on ad-hoc manual approaches to managing their risks. In today’s climate, never before has it been more important to steer your organization toward a more integrated approach to risk management. Local, regional and global disruptions, cyber risks, continually evolving regulations, third- and fourth-party vendors… how does one successfully deploy an integrated view of the risks that your organization faces? And how do you put that real time information to use when the time comes to address an issue that can impact operations?

Let’s take a look at four key areas to address when it comes to building a successful IRM plan: Strategy, People, Processes and Technology. Each of these relies on the others to create solid foundation. When developing a strategy, you need people on board. Develop a culture within your organization that breeds awareness and empowerment among individuals, teams and executives. Good communication and reporting are imperative in contributing to the success of any IRM strategy, and this is fostered by having easy-to-use and efficient processes in place. In a culture of risk awareness, staff and executives at all levels can be empowered to contribute to building a robust strategy of risk management and mitigation through the use of modern technologies. Software platforms like ServiceNow leverage these technologies to improve collaboration, notification and build powerful workflows for IRM strategies. Having a single collaborative portal available to the entire organization means that you can more quickly and easily identify and address risks internally and from third- and fourth-party vendors.

Having a “single point of truth” like this not only highlights your potential risk vectors but can define relationships between these risks. This is a powerful tool for developing the processes needed to reduce risks and for building comprehensive plans to address incidents like regulatory failures. But not just incidents within your own organization. The vast majority of companies regularly outsource tightly integrated parts of their products and services. Third-party vendors are each responsible for their own risk management. Having a single platform like ServiceNow is vital in helping to ensure that their processes align with your own, and that they’re fulfilling all of the risk management requirements your organization has in place. What once required great effort and persistence in getting vendors to respond to these inquiries, ServiceNow facilitates with a workflow that improves response times. In fact, the city and county of Denver, Colorado were able to simplify their vendor risk management, leading to an incredible 66% reduction in survey response times.

NewRocket can help you build a rock-solid IRM program using a foundation of strategy, people, processes and technology for the ServiceNow platform.