Best practices

In the dynamic landscape of risk, standing on the shoulders of past successes can be invaluable. RSI offers guidelines steeped in best practices, ensuring institutions can navigate their journey armed with strategies that have been proven to minimize threats and maximize rewards.

RSI’s approach to assisting clients in the development of risk-savvy best practices policies starts with the principle that effective risk management should be woven into the fabric of an organization’s everyday activities and decision-making processes. The goal is not merely to mitigate risks but to empower the organization to make well-informed, risk-aware decisions that align with its overall strategy and objectives.

Initially, RSI conducts a comprehensive audit of the client’s existing risk management policies, processes, and practices. This includes identifying any gaps or vulnerabilities, as well as benchmarking the organization’s current approaches against industry standards and best practices. Understanding the status quo is essential for recommending changes that are both impactful and practical for the client.

Next, RSI brings together a multidisciplinary team of risk analysts, business strategists, and domain experts to formulate a draft set of best practices that are uniquely suited to the client’s industry, organizational structure, and risk profile. The draft policy incorporates key elements of risk management, such as risk identification, assessment, treatment, and monitoring. It also outlines the roles and responsibilities across different organizational levels, ensuring a distributed yet cohesive approach to managing risks.

RSI places a particular emphasis on creating best practices that are actionable and measurable. Each proposed practice is linked to specific metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) that allow the organization to assess its effectiveness. These metrics are carefully designed to be relevant, realistic, and aligned with the organization’s broader strategic goals.

One of the most critical phases is stakeholder engagement. RSI orchestrates workshops, focus groups, or one-on-one interviews with various organizational stakeholders, ranging from executives to front-line employees. The aim is to gather feedback on the draft best practices policy, identify potential challenges to its implementation, and generate buy-in. The stakeholder feedback is invaluable in refining the policy to ensure it is both robust and well-accepted within the organization.

Once the best practices policy is finalized, RSI helps the client in the implementation phase. This involves disseminating the policy through appropriate channels, providing training sessions to staff, and setting up systems for monitoring compliance and effectiveness. Where relevant, RSI may also assist in integrating these best practices into existing enterprise risk management (ERM) systems or other organizational tools.

The implementation is followed by a continual review mechanism. RSI believes that risk management is a dynamic process that requires regular updates and refinements. To this end, periodic evaluations of the best practices policy are conducted, involving both quantitative assessments (through the pre-defined KPIs) and qualitative reviews (such as stakeholder interviews or surveys). Based on these evaluations, adjustments are made to the policy, keeping it aligned with changing risk landscapes and organizational objectives.

In summary, RSI’s approach to guiding clients in the development of risk-savvy best practices policies is rigorous, participatory, and iterative. It involves initial audits, multidisciplinary planning, stakeholder engagement, actionable metrics, comprehensive training, and ongoing evaluations. This ensures that the resultant policy not only effectively manages risks but also becomes an integral part of the organization’s operational ethos and strategic planning.