Deloitte survey on strategic risk management offers important recommendations

Strategic risk management sounds like a course requirement in an MBA curriculum. While it is the topic of academic study, it’s also something that business executives need to regularly address in our times of technology-driven change. Unfortunately, a recent study by Deloitte found that most business leaders are not sufficiently prioritizing the myriad of new risks that can significantly damage an organization’s reputation, culture and information assets.

The assessment comes from a survey of 400 CEOs and board members from U.S. firms with at least $1 billion in annual revenue. According to Chuck Saia, the head of Deloitte’s Risk and Financial Advisory unit, he designed the survey to understand how business leaders think about and prioritize strategic risks, particularly those he hears most frequently in client engagements: reputation, culture, cyber and extended enterprise risks. In introducing the survey, Saia notes that (emphasis added),

When I meet with C-suite executives and board members, it’s clear that these threats are the most difficult to understand, identify, and navigate. There’s frustration in not having the right answers, but also in not knowing what…