Aon surveyed 103 risk managers, chief risk officers and other senior executives in the Americas and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Of the companies surveyed. 83% said that they are reasonably familiar or very familiar with ERM and its implementation and purpose, but only one in four organizations said that developing ERM programs is part of their strategic plan.
The survey concluded that most organizations overly focus on top management when implementing ERM and have not taken steps to reach out to employees, which is where many risks occur.
“For business to appropriately deal with the risks they face, it is imperative that they communicate the ERM message through all levels of their organizations,” said Andrew Tunnicliffe, AGRC’s head of global business development. “Our survey suggests companies are behind: just one in seven say their ERM function is good at communicating that message,” he added.
But pressure from rating agencies, among other drivers for ERM, is set to increase with ratings agency Standard & Poor’s Corp. likely to start rating non financial organizations’ ERM performance at the end of 2007 or early 2008, noted Corey Gooch, head of business development for the Americas at Aon Ltd. in London.