RISK MANAGEMENT CONCLAVE 2019

Host: Institute Of Risk Management, UK & ITI Edvest

Association Partner: IMC Chamber of Commerce & Industry

by Suman Gupta

A Risk Management Conclave was organized by The Institute of Risk Management, UK along with its India Partner – ITI EdVest, in association with IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The conclave was supported by industry stalwarts who came together as panelists to discuss and deliberate on the increasing importance of risk management and its education in India. With the challenges being faced by Indian businesses, rise in corporate governance issues, disruption in traditional business models and volatility in the Indian economy, risk management has gained a lot of traction.

(Panelists: Amit Tandon, Founder, IiAS, Neeta Mukerji, Chief Credit Officer, RBL Bank, Dhanpal Jhaveri, Managing Partner, Everstone Capital & Chairman – Corporate Governance & Sustainability Committee at IMC Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Sudhir Valia,  largest shareholder, The Investment Trust of India Limited and Shailesh Haribhakti, Non-Executive Chairman, L&T Financial Services)

India is home to the third largest family businesses in the world but 43% do not have a succession plan in place. We have advanced significantly in terms of technology using AI, machine learning, big data but over 76% of Indian businesses are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. According to a professor from Yale School of Management, the average life span of an S&P company has dropped from 67 years in 1920 to 15 years today and even predicted that 75% of the S&P 500 firms will be replaced by new firms in 2027.

“India is perhaps the only country in the world that has mandated a Risk Management Committee of the Board, apart from Audit Committee and Compliance Committee and these 3 committees are very distinctly managed for keeping an organisation safe and sustainable” said Shailesh Haribhakti.

“Focus on the risk management process is of paramount importance”, said Amit Tandon. Recently, regulators in India have emphasized on the need of a well-defined risk management structure to ensure more transparency from corporate governance point of view and also prudent decision making for smooth functioning of businesses. Mr. Sudhir Valia added “Risks emanate from the shop floor and they should be resolved by the risk owners itself, because once these risks travel to the board room, the impact cannot be reduced to a desired level.”

It was discussed, that risk management is not only about managing financial risks or compliance risks but also taking a holistic approach towards enterprise wide risk management. “Good risk managers should be good at history because those who don’t learn from history will be doomed to repeat it” said Neeta Mukerji.

Today’s initiative by IMC is to apprise all professionals here on how to identify risks and manage them even before they affect the business functioning. This will strengthen companies and enable them to take future business decisions effectually. Their knowledge of identifying risks on time, will pan out their options to deal with risks on a timely and effective way, thus helping in achieving its primary objective while keeping all other risks under control said Ashish Vaid, President, IMC.

One key message that was driven from the conclave was that Risk Management will be the driving force behind tackling business failures, improving stakeholder confidence and most importantly, creating a culture of risk based decision making across organisations. From an investment risk perspective, Dhanpal Jhaveri said, “Investing is like a two faced coin – there is always a return on one side and risk on the other side and as investors we are also custodians of others capital so asking the right questions before investing is very crucial.”

At the conclave, The Institute of Risk Management – UK also announced their entry into India in collaboration with ITI EdVest (the education initiative of The Investment Trust of India Limited) to introduce their suite of professional enterprise risk qualifications for students, entrepreneurs and working professionals with an objective of nurturing the next generation of risk thinking leaders in India. “Having trained business risk management to over 500 students through a unique experiential and practical approach, I believe that risk management is as important as financial literacy and there is a need to integrate this with our education system such that India’s SMEs, family businesses, startups and large corporate organisations continue to grow with stability and the right risk response strategy to reduce the impact of risks”, said Hersh Shah, India Affiliate Partner of IRM UK.

IRM qualifications will be available through ITI EdVest’s empanelled education institutions and corporate partners and they will also be announcing open enrolment programs at select cities across India. For more information, one can contact their India Affiliate – ITI EdVest.

“India as a country has huge potential and we see a huge demand for enterprise risk professionals across industries including financial services. With IRM qualifications now available in India through ITI EdVest, we are confident about bridging the demand-supply gap and developing a large pool of qualified enterprise risk professionals”, added Sanjay Himatsingani, Director of Training & Development, Institute of Risk Management, UK.