Risk analysis and management

Our public and private sector clients have saved money and improved the performance of their businesses at corporate, business unit and operational levels, through Kristal Oak’s thorough and pragmatic approach to identifying and managing the risk to their investments.

“first weigh the considerations, then take the risks.”  



To improve performance businesses need to identify and manage foreseeable risks at all levels within their organisation:

	Corporate level risks are those risks that Board members need to identify, govern, audit and report on to ensure maximum value for their stakeholders is attained.   These risks are usually associated with the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal dimensions of a corporation.
	Business unit risks are the risks that every company faces in their sphere of trading.   Understanding these risks will bring distinct advantages over competitors and help achieve performance targets.   Deploying well proven risk strategies in this area will drive efficiencies and produce better margins in your business.
	Operational risks are those risks that can arise due to employee errors, systems failures, damage of loss of physical assest, fraud or other criminal activity.  The operational level is where business strategies are realised.  Therefore it is essential to have effective risk management at this level to ensure your investments deliver the intended benefits.

"successful businesses do not leave things to chance"

Failure to manage risk effectively will result in detrimental cost, time, quality and resource repercussions for a business.

How we can help

We tailor our risk analysis and management solution to the specific needs of a client and adapt it to the particular characteristics of a project.  At the outset of our appointment we invest time to understand the client’s needs and key business objectives, and those of the project stakeholders. 

"all activities carry with them some element of risk.  In business there are no guarantees”

We aim to deploy risk management as early as possible in the business planning or project cycle, in order to help consider all potential risks and uncertainties, and to select and implement appropriate methods for risk analysis in line with the business and project requirements.  Such methods include holistic approaches, which support analysis of risk at the early stages of the planning of the investment, or the more traditional software within which substantial risk models may be built.

Our approach is to focus on those factors, which, when combined together, influence the quality of the identification processes.  Some 80% of the benefit of the risk analysis and management process are considered to be derived from the risk identification phase so this is where we focus our initial efforts.

We ensure that our risk processes remain at the forefront of current thinking, incorporating the latest developments in the field.  Risk management solutions from Kristal Oak reflect best practice from current industry standards and guidelines including:

• Enterprise Risk Management – Integrated Framework (COSO)
• ‘Management of Risk’ (published by OGC)
• ‘Risk analysis and management for projects’ (published jointly by the Institute of Civil Engineers, Faculty of Actuaries and the Institute of Actuaries)
• PRINCE 2
• the PRAM guide (published by the Association for Project Management)
• the British Standard BS 6079:1996 ‘Guide to Project Management’ and other industry specific guides

The Kristal Oak team actively monitors developments with regard to forthcoming publications.