Digital transformation is a reality. Yet many CIOs and IT managers struggle to convince the rest of the business of that reality. Even though there is a smaller divide of understanding between the IT and non-IT people about this concept, practical barriers still exist.
"I've come across this quite often: companies want to transform, but it's a project that threatens to go in all directions," says Riaan Bekker, Riskonnect Solutions Manager at thryve. "To modernise completely, you have to address silos, the workforce and the enterprise's ecosystem outside of its doors. That is tough to articulate, let alone manage."
The Harvard Business Review agrees. It highlights silos as a key barrier to digital change, as well as inadequate collaboration between IT and lines of business - quite often the place to start if the business wants to find champions for its digital projects.
But, there is a business area often overlooked yet eager to modernise: risk. Many companies avoid true digital momentum because they are too risk-averse. Yet, if you look at other data, risk managers are usually less risk-averse than boards or excos. This suggests risk managers are in the same boat as IT, in that they struggle to get the business on the same page.
This is an opportunity, Bekker explains. By using a cloud-based risk consolidation and integration platform, a company can achieve several things: bridge silos, encourage data culture, build a single truth, integrate to empower legacy systems and encourage the co-operation of all the business units, all through a model that deploys and scales as conveniently as one would expect from modern applications. After all, what permeates an organisation more than risk data?
To take advantage of this, here are three trends to focus on in 2018:
Partner with other business functions
Silos are often attacked as inefficient and a barrier to progress. This is not entirely true. Silos exist in businesses for many reasons, one of which is to protect the unique qualities of a department or project from the generalised desires of the rest of the business.
The reason why silos have a bad name, though, is because they often also inhibit the necessary flow of information, says Bekker: "Today, it's all about data. The right knowledge needs to reach the right places. Fracturing needs to end so that everyone gets the same picture. So silos can create confusion and disinformation inside an enterprise. Digital technologies can fix that, but not on their own. They need a partner that is invested in accurate data that comes from across the business. That's risk, plain and simple, because it's relevant to different parts of the business."
Help solve worries around compliance, governance
Expect to hear a lot more about governance and compliance in 2018, especially as public distaste towards fraud is spurring action in business and political circles. This will be compounded by the arrival of regulations such as POPI, says Bekker: "Governance and compliance have become defined by technology, so they are often the CIO's headache. But they also matter deeply to the risk officer. That's a shared interest that should be used, again by using modern risk integration platforms."
Enable the cultivation of a risk-responsive culture
"Something I see more on risk trends reports is the distinction between conventional and complex risk," says Bekker. "Companies aren't able to keep everything inside their walls. Access for partners and customers are being encouraged by technology, but this is opening more risk to deal with."
The response, he explains, is not to keep lumping risk onto the shoulders of specific departments. Every employee is in a position to spot risks as well as opportunities. But they might not know how to communicate it or be afraid that it's not their place to speak up.
This is again a problem that can be solved by combining the needs of IT and risk departments. Culture is a collection of habits and habits are formed by actions. Give employees the right tools for the job and they will realise the value the company needs. It is a fundamental truth about digital tools (who can imagine employees today without e-mail?) and risk technologies is a very pervasive toolset worth investing in.
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