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What is Risk Management?

Running any business, or organisation exposes you to risks. You cannot do anything about it either. It’s just the way it is!

Risks for clubs and associations are different to sole traders and partnerships, which are different again to those for limited companies. No matter what you might want to believe not recognising what these risks are, and managing them properly, is very dangerous.

Getting caught out can be very costly and not everything can be covered by insurance. What is, in theory, will depend on how well you organise yourself. Why, well not doing things in the way in which your insurance company stipulates (and it’s all in the policy somewhere) can invalidate any claim you make using that part of your insurance policy.

This leaves you bearing any cost of what’s gone wrong.

Running you own business, club, or association, requires thought and dedication. Managing risks isn’t a “fun or sexy” part of running a business but it is as vital as running your finances in the right way.

How do you know what is right for your business, there’s a lot of guidance out there from insurance specialists, risk assessors, health and safety specialists, but only you know your business inside and out and you are going to have to be the one making the final decisions.

Also what is the standard in your industry, or sector? What association is there that could provide guidance.

risk-management
The Risk I Took Was Calculated - But Man Am I Bad At Maths!

Before asking anyone else though, what do these points conjure up for you:

  • Which laws, regulations and industry body practices should I deal with first?
  • What happens if my insurance company changes their requirements?
  • What happens to my business if I’m not around?
  • What happens if my main supplier ceases trading?
  • What happens if my main customer cancels their contract?
  • What happens if I can’t work in my business anymore?
  • What will happen if certain specialist staff leave me?
  • What happens if I can’t work from the same place anymore?

So, as you can see, risk management isn’t just about compliance it’s about practical things too. We need to understand and manage the risks that these elements throw at us as business owners.

For the compliance related topics there are great references in the ISO standards, in fact the ISO27000 series deal solely with Information Security Management topics. Cyber security is all part of your Risk Management.

I understand what is important when looking in from the outside. Some of these things appear on your website, some on your quotations and invoices, yet more on your terms and conditions, or contractual terms and there’s some hidden in your policies and processes too.

Do you want to make things better for you in your business?