Managing Risk | Custom Essay Papers

This assignment is worth 35 marks (35% of your final grade)

Part 1 Theory (10 marks)

Consider the following statement:

‘Risk managers should mainly focus on the consequences of an event rather than its likelihood as these consequences determine the impact on the business.’
 

You need to:
– Examine the interaction between likelihood and consequences and develop an argument either for or against the statement;
– Your commentary should contain a critical argument with a brief introduction, stating where you stand and how you argue your case and then finish with a conclusion. 
– Include an analysis of the role of a business risk manager offer some conclusions as to how prominent the role of the business risk manager should be within the wider management of the business, i.e. when compared with other management functions such as strategy, governance, product development, marketing, finance, operations, etc. 
– With the support of academic literature, justify how you reached your conclusions.

Part 2 Workplace Application (17.5 marks)

Part 1 (7.5 marks)
Compare and contrast the risk mitigation strategies of retain, transfer or avoid risk. Your discussion should include the key considerations a risk manager should take into account when making such decisions (e.g. cost versus benefit framework). Use your chosen work case problem to generate a working example for each of the three strategies. Recommend the strongest strategy for your chosen work case problem and justify your decision.

Part 2 (10 marks)
Technology is rapidly changing and improving how we can profile risk. Increasingly this is allowing more sophisticated modelling of risk. The Bowtie approach is set to replace some older methods. This means increasingly software applications such as BowtieXP are becoming available to expedite this process. Hence, your boss has asked you to trial the program and give a report on the program in which you offer a recommendation as to go ahead and implement the program.

Your brief is to: 
1. Download the Bowtie XP program, enter all your current data and attempt to produce a series of reports in order to examine the software features;
2. Write up a report to your boss detailing the:
a. Theoretical foundations of the program;
b. Discuss the features and benefits of the software (insert relevant Bowtie reports and then discuss them individually);
c. A final recommendation stating whether your company should implement the program.
 

Part 3 Reflection (5 marks)
Provide a reflective summary of your own perception of risk and how your understanding of risk, risk analysis, and risk management has developed over the session. Identify what you consider to be the three critical components of risk and risk management.

Communication skills (1.25 marks) 
• Presentation of the work including: structure, format, grammar and images.

Referencing skills (1.25 marks) 
• The application of APA referencing

I work for a mid-sized financial services company. The company has experienced exceptional grown over the last three years. This is most visible in its Information and Technology operations. Three years ago, there was less that twenty staff working in IT with the majority of the services outsourced. Over the last three years the department has grown to over a one hundred staff. However, the growth has not been well planned and has been more a reaction to demand instead of a result of a strategic long-term plan.

12 months ago, the company executive came to the realisation that a complete department restructure was required. An external consultancy was awarded a contract to review the organisation and create a new department structure and implementation plan. Consultation was limited to the senior management team and not any of their subordinates. What was first announced as a 3-month time-frame, quickly became an 8-month duration. During this time communication to staff was limited, confusing and created a sense of uncertainty. The outcome of this was that a number of key staff, combining decades of experience decided to move on. Once the restructure was enacted, it was clear it lacked sufficient detail. There was more uncertainly, confusion and additional staff left. Departmental deliverables suffered and the entire business was impacted.

This assignment has been designed to address the following subject learning outcomes:

• be able to critically interpret the risk management concept;
• be able to assess and critically evaluate the role of the decision maker in risk;
• be able to interpret risk through modelling techniques;
• design and implement strategies to diminish risk through the potential to self-insure, or to transfer risk using different product solutions.

This assessment is designed to reinforce the use of software in assessing risk. Additionally it will assist you to make appropriate strategy decision to manage the risks identified in the second assessment.

In addition this assessment aims to bring together the work you have done during the session to a conclusion. You will be required to undertake a reflection of the subject that includes commentary on your risk preference and the development of skills in risk analysis and risk management over the session.

 Report style

It is expected you will follow a formal report style. Below are guidelines for your report:

• Begin with an executive summary followed by a table of contents. An introduction is then written before the main body of your report. The end of your report should include a conclusion. The report should finish with your references (not a bibliography) followed by any appendices you may have used;
• Headings and sub-headings should be used;
• Be consistent in your layout and the use of font sizes and spacing between paragraphs;
• The font should be between 10-12pt size and be an open faced type such as Arial or Calibri;
• The line spacing should be 1.5;
• Left-justify the text;
• Most importantly, always proofread your work using a spell-checker and remember this does not pick up all errors.

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