FERMA report reveals importance of risk managers to corporate resilience

In the report published on 28 September by the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) and the global management consulting firm McKinsey provides evidence of the importance risk and insurance managers to the resilience of their organisations.

The findings of their survey on the role of risk management in corporate resilience was presented at a FERMA webinar on 28 September. Watch the replay here. 

The report presents the views of risk and insurance professionals and senior executives about a post-pandemic view of resilience management in their organisations across sectors globally in the summer of 2021.

Click here to download the report in PDF Format. 

Launching the report, the President of FERMA Dirk Wegener said: “Before the pandemic, we knew that risk management and risk and insurance managers had an important role in keeping shocks from destabilising their companies. The pandemic proved that. Until this report, however, we had little data on that contribution.”

The survey showed:

• More than 90% of those surveyed said that the global pandemic made risk management and resilience more important to their organisations; more than 50% said to a considerable or great extent.
• The majority of participants feel their organisations are well equipped to manage resilience overall. Risk and insurance managers are involved in the process in a meaningful way with further room to lead initiatives, especially in predictive capabilities such as scenario planning and stress testing.
• More than 60% of the participants acknowledge resilience as a top priority or very relevant in strategic decision-making.
• Looking forward, almost three-quarters of the risk managers surveyed see a clear need for both improving risk culture and more strongly integrating resilience in their organisations’ strategy.

Full set of results presented at webinar on 28 September: 

Said Dirk Wegener; “The pandemic has highlighted the importance of good risk and crisis management and its contribution to resilience, but we must not be complacent. We continue to face other, potentially disruptive shocks, for example, from climate change and cyber risks. Resilience is essential for the success of European business, and as this survey shows, in this, risk and insurance managers can be leaders.”

Resilience is a key word for FERMA in supporting our members. The theme of the 2021 FERMA Talks event on 11-12 October is Risk and Resilience: learning to deal with disruption. This survey provides a foundation for future work on resilience. FERMA will also embed resilience into our advocacy work when we contribute to projects, such as the European Green Deal and the European Digital Agenda.