Keeping up with the catastrophes

Finance professionals will need to adapt quickly to crises while juggling multiple responsibilities as the global risk environment becomes more volatile, complex, and unpredictable, according to a new survey.

And much of that agility will need to come from the technological transformations often being led by the finance function.

Risk-management strategies should be an integrated part of every business process and function to support effective strategic decision-making according to PwC’s 2022 Global Risk Survey. This is becoming especially true as organizations continue to develop sophisticated data analytics and scenario modeling. Speed and flexibility will be key to responding to risk and disruption and can provide effective organizations with a competitive advantage.

The PwC survey, which included 3,584 business, risk, audit, and compliance executives, found that organizations are also ponying up to boost their risk management tech capabilities: “Three-quarters of executives are planning on increasing spending across data analytics, process automation and technology to support the detection and monitoring of risks.”

Businesses are also finding opportunity even as supply-chain disruption, economic strain, geopolitical upheaval, and perilous cyberthreats exacerbate the risk landscape. Almost a quarter of the organizations in the survey saw measurable benefits “from defining or resetting risk appetite and risk thresholds.”

The survey found that businesses that “embrace risk management capabilities as a strategic organisational capability” as a matter of policy were more confident and optimistic about their ability to deliver on business objectives.—DA