Business risk services
Delivering business impact and insights through practical, risk-based solutions
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We work closely with our clients to apply practical risk-based solutions to truly mitigate, manage, and optimise risk. Our experienced team of risk practitioners and actuaries combine qualitative and quantitative methods to a variety of business problems to deliver real business insights and impact.
Our approach begins with understanding our client’s unique business challenges starting with a holistic view; we then apply a proportionate use of analytics and quantitative methods to inform commercial decisions; followed by practical and innovative problem solving in partnership with clients that make a real difference in risk exposures.
Innovative and intelligent analytics, combined with industry leading expertise in prevention enable us to help organisations effectively manage the cost of risk associated with liability and claims. Whether you retain a portion of risk or fully transfer, we know the costs associated with claims impact the bottom line.
Our actuarial capability, combined with an unrivalled knowledge of claims prevention and defence strategies creates unique insights around cost drivers. Working in partnership with you, these insights facilitate the design of achievable intervention strategies that target sustainable reductions in claims cost of risk. See more here
Most organisations have the technical aspects in place, some more developed than others, however many still struggle to gain value from these activities. Barnett Waddingham has developed its own risk maturity model against which it can benchmark clients’ risk management practices proportionate to their size, complexity and risk exposures. We understand how to apply best practice risk techniques and seek to evidence whether softer elements of risk culture are in place, to pass a ‘use test’.
There are also several actuarial techniques that involve modelling a wider portfolio of risks and scenarios. These are useful to help understand how a business is likely to perform under different scenarios, and under what extreme circumstances the business would fail. Knowing this extreme limit through a reverse-stress test, the business can then seek to better understand and prevent the factors for this scenario to materialise. This might also inform the level and types of insurance to be purchased.
Read a case study that demonstrates the application of these techniques here
Project Managers are typically expected to manage risks in projects. For large scale, high criticality, or high risk projects, a specialist project risk manager that has a holistic view of the business and seeks to manage risks as an enabler to project success may be a more appropriate solution. Barnett Waddingham has demonstrated its ability to proactively manage risks using simple, traditional techniques. Where appropriate to do so, we can also help to implement forward looking risk-adjusted statistical analysis that helps identify project delays or over-spends earlier.
Read our innovative risk management for a FTSE100 company case study here.
There are a number of quantitative techniques that can be used to analyse risk and optimise outcomes that inform specific investments, programmes or business decisions. We specialise in problems where the solutions are not immediately obvious or where ‘softer’ risk considerations could impact on the chosen option. We work with clients to identify suitable techniques and carry out the relevant analysis that supports good governance and effective decision making.
Read about risk optimisation here and optimising risk and returns to inform decision making in the Oil & Gas Industry here
How precise is your forecasting? Do your internal models sufficiently consider risk and volatility? How do these reflect changes in your risk profile? Given the increasing risk in global markets and the mounting pressure to meet market and shareholder expectations, some businesses are considering better alignment between existing risk analysis and planning, budgeting, and forecasting tools. This provides more credibility and demonstrates process maturity.
We see the most risk-mature organisations embedding risk and analytical techniques into other business processes i.e. considering risk when prioritising key customers and suppliers and managing each category differently; having more robust controls for only high risk transactions; giving different compensation and benefits as well as employment terms for key employees.
Read about actuarial insights into customer loyalty programmes here.
“I have spent my entire career in Enterprise Risk Management holding both in-house and advisory roles. I’ve seen the profession evolve, learning what not-to do as well as seeing the power and potential of truly effective risk management in driving strategy, commercial decisions and real business change. ”Danny Wong
Adam Poulson explains how an increase in pension scheme deficit can prevent a company from paying planned dividends.
In response to a recent article, Iain Poole considers dealing with uncertainty in the oil and gas industry and highlights some of the key challenges in terms of general decision making, and in light of the current turbulent environment.
In a recent survey of over 160 Upstream 'megaprojects', with an average project size of $6.6 billion, EY identified 65% of projects as experiencing cost over-runs, and 78% experienced delays. We look at the inherent uncertainty with large CAPEX projects.
With ongoing discussions in relation to the USS very much in mind, we're thinking about the challenges faced by those who want to provide DB benefits for the future, and the ways in which multi-employer schemes can affect different employers differently.
Our Higher Education (HE) experience stretches over 20 years and includes advice across a top- tier client list, spanning the UK. In this newsletter, we bring you the latest news on pensions and other business risks within the HE sector.
Finding Petroleum held a conference in November anticipating the COP21 Paris climate summit in January 2016. Given the topicality of climate change policies, a glut of oil, and low commodity prices, what impact will these have over the next few decades?
Our Risk Maturity Benchmarking report is based on market research involving over 100 respondents, and face-to-face meetings with more than 35 business and risk leaders.
We were appointed to advise a client with ~£400m of assets in 2015 and this case study sets out how we worked with the trustees and employer to ultimately reduce risk and increase expected returns while working towards an agreed objective.
We provide a regular funding and investment monitoring service to the trustees of a £40m scheme. We were asked to review the funding and investment strategies of the scheme, in particular with a view of reducing the risk of the deficit increasing further.
A client was looking to develop a financial management plan for the scheme, targeting a fully de-risked and liability matched investment strategy and moving on to buy-out. The plan aimed to strike a balance between reducing risk and business needs.
We were proud to take this award home for the second consecutive year, after being recognised by an esteemed panel of industry experts for our innovative solutions in technology and forward-thinking approach to complex business challenges.
We are pleased to announce the appointment of risk management specialist, Marc Spurling, to our growing Business Risk consultancy. Marc’s legal experience will provide client specific risk management advice across multiple industry sectors.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has issued a report into developments in corporate governance and stewardship in 2015. The report assesses the overall quality of corporate governance in the UK as high.