Guide to ISO 31000: Risk management principles and guidelines

Business interruption today is a matter of when not if. The topline risk of disaster-related closings of business facilities has only increased over the last decade. And the incidents themselves have become more expensive to recover from.

Worse still, interruption isn’t the only serious business risk requiring consistent senior management oversight. From physical and operational security to environmental health and safety, the ranks of significant risk continue to grow, as the wider environment becomes more difficult for business.

Risk scholars have offered reasons why, highlighting a number of important, cross-industry trends exacerbating business risk across the globe. Those trends include growing interdependency, shorter-term (management) thinking, increased regulation, greater geographical clustering, higher probability of systemic shock, and new calls for transparency, spurred on by advances in information and communications technology. This macro- picture is also reflected in major insurer, Allianz’s, top ten list of global business risks.