Risk Management Publications

2011

1. 2011 Corporate Security, Business Continuity, and Crisis Management Conference KeyNotes Report

   December 2011 | Conference KeyNotes

   The 2011 Corporate Security, Business Continuity, and Crisis Management Conference—Ten Years after 9/11: Where Are We Now? Where Are We Headed?

2. 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Conference KeyNotes Report

   February 2012 | Conference KeyNotes

   Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is evolving beyond compliance to become a more integral part of strategy.

2012

1. 2012 Enterprise Risk Management Conference KeyNotes Report

   March 2013 | Conference KeyNotes

   Aligning Strategy and Risk to Deliver Value

A

1. Achieving Resilience: A Systems Approach

   September 2011 | Executive Action Report

   A new approach to emergency preparedness is oriented toward systems and seeks resilience based on the realization that it is impossible to protect communities and organizations against crisis in a vacuum.

2. Achieving Resilience: Establishing Networks—Before the Crisis Comes

   September 2011 | Executive Action Report

   Having a network in place in advance of a crisis can provide a critical boost to achieving resilience.

3. Achieving Resilience: Planning for Flexibility during Crisis

   September 2011 | Executive Action Report

   Planning and preparation are as essential as ever, but now they must be flexible, incorporating the capacity to respond to unique developments in a crisis.

4. All the Options

   January 2009 | The Conference Board Review

   Scenario planning aims to prepare you for your next crisis, whatever it may be.

5. Are Your Opinions Really Your Own?

   July 2012 | The Conference Board Review

   HR departments increasingly require disclaimers be appended to employees' Twitter posts. But disclaimers are a flawed solution to a dubious problem.

6. Assessing the Climate for Enterprise Risk Management in India

   April 2008 | Research Report

   This report looks at the state of ERM integration in India-based corporations and examines emerging practices in this area by four leading corporations in India.

B

1. Beyond Compliance: The Future of Risk Management

   January 2005 | Executive Action Report

   According to recent interviews with business managers, Enterprise Risk Management is gaining ground as a comprehensive approach for evaluating activities and assessing a multitude of risks associated with conducting business.

2. Beyond Costs: Financial and Operational Risks

   June 2005 | Research Report

   This report explores a number of important factors that must be taken into account when initiating offshoring, ranging from a consideration of unexpected setup costs to how to decide on a location.

3. Board Asia Newsletter

   September 2012 | Periodical

   Quarter Three 2012

4. Board Asia Newsletter

   July 2012 | Periodical

   Quarter Two 2012

5. Board Oversight of Management’s Risk Appetite and Tolerance

   December 2012 | Director Notes

   This Director Notes analyzes the handicaps created by current risk oversight and assurance approaches and tools, highlights six goals for boards in executing their risk oversight duties, and provides practical advice for directors on how to achieve them.

6. Building a Resilient Workforce: A Critical Component of Disaster Recovery

   September 2012 | Executive Action Report

   Resilience has traditionally been the ability of information systems, databases, and facilities to bounce back after a disaster. But true resilience requires that companies also prepare their employees to recover, both in their jobs and personal lives.

7. Building an Effective Product Stewardship and Regulatory Affairs Organization

   January 2013 | Council Perspectives

   PSRA has expanded from narrowly managing compliance to enabling the business to pursue new products and markets, driving the need for additional skills in the function.

8. Business Benefits of Security: Making the Case in Mid-Market Companies

   April 2007 | Executive Action Report

   Mid-market companies are coming to the realization that security is best viewed as an investment that increases business value, rather than an expense to be minimized.

C

1. China Center Chart of the Week: China’s capital account liberalization is still a long way off

   April 2013 | China Center Publications

   This chart shows China’s capital account in the Balance of Payments data, with positive numbers signaling credits (essentially money flowing into the economy in various forms) and negative numbers representing debits (net flows of assets held abroad).

2. China Center Chart of the Week: China’s manufacturing PMI should be taken with a growing grain of salt

   May 2013 | China Center Publications

   This chart shows the performance of China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) since January 2010, along with the major subcomponents. We urge members to view this index with great caution.

3. China Center Chart of the Week: Interdependence of Chinese and Japanese economies is much larger than their trade relationship

   January 2013 | China Center Publications

   This chart shows China’s imports from and exports to Japan until the end of 2012, and uses Input-Output table analysis to calculate the amount the Japanese and Chinese economies impact one another, both directly and indirectly.

4. China Center Chart of the Week: Recent jump in bank deposits likely boosted by new WMP regulations

   May 2013 | China Center Publications

   This chart shows changes in the stock of outstanding deposits in China’s banking system on a monthly basis, and the total outstanding deposit growth.

5. China Center Quick Note: China’s Consumption Paradox

   July 2012 | China Center Publications

   This Quick Note examines and explains the structural factors constraining household consumption in China, and the challenges China faces in transitioning to a consumption-driven economy.

6. China Center Quick Note: China’s “Elections” and the Future of Reform

   November 2012 | China Center Publications

   This Quick Note examines the policy imperatives for China’s new, recently “elected” leading group. MNCs should pay special attention to monitoring policy developments related to financial/credit market reform and State Owned Enterprise reform.

7. China Center Quick Note: Xi Jinping at the helm: command and control – or negotiate and cajole?

   March 2013 | China Center Publications

   This Quick Note assesses what China's incoming president might reasonably be expected to achieve given the limits necessarily imposed on him by the political system.

8. Collapse: Alan Wurtzel helped make Circuit City a great company. And then he set out to learn why it failed.

   October 2012 | The Conference Board Review

   A Q&A with Alan Wurtzel, former chairman and CEO of Circuit City and author of "Good to Great to Gone."

9. Converging Physical and Information Security Risk Management

   February 2011 | Executive Action Report

   Traditionally, physical and information security have operated in their own silos with separate teams and different risks, processes, and budgets. But risks and threats are evolving and becoming interdependent. As new technologies are adopted in the workp

10. Coordinating Business Preparedness: Managing Public and Private Efforts

    April 2008 | Executive Action Report

    An effective partnership between the public and private sectors is essential to ensure the resilience of America's critical infrastructure.

11. Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Arrive: Are Capital Markets Addressing New Business and Investment Risk Factors?

    July 2002 | Executive Action Report

    Perhaps the only thing that is certain today in global capital markets is that traditional performance measures are not capturing important investment risk factors.

12. Cracking the Financial Code

    March 2010 | Council Perspectives

    This report is an issue-specific excerpt from Council Perspectives (CP-015) Corporate Brands: Meeting the Challenges of Changing Times.

13. Culture Crash

    October 2009 | The Conference Board Review

    A Lehman Brothers insider reveals why the firm's best traits turned out to be its worst.

D

1. Dangerous Terrain: How to manage corporate political spending in a risky new environment

   January 2012 | The Conference Board Review

   With attention focused on the money that SuperPACs are spending to influence election results, companies are likely overlooking their own risks in the new campaign-finance system.

E

1. Embracing the Enemy: Why companies need to encourage whistleblowers, not fear them

   July 2011 | The Conference Board Review

   Why do good corporations not try harder to search for and act on information about potential wrongdoing—before someone blows a whistle in public?

2. Emerging Governance Practices In Enterprise Risk Management

   February 2007 | Research Report

   This report examines how ERM departs from the fragmented and compartmentalized risk management solutions already in place at many organizations.

3. Enterprise Risk Management Systems: Beyond the Balanced Scorecard

   June 2005 | Research Report

   This report features a new approach to developing an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) system which goes beyond earlier basic concepts to not only identify strategic success measures, but also to link them to risk factors.

F

1. FCPA Enforcement Trends

   February 2013 | Director Notes

   This report discusses Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement, litigation, and policy developments. It also analyzes recent trends and offers guidance to help companies, executives and directors avoid or minimize liability under the FCPA.

2. From Risk Management To Risk Strategy

   June 2005 | Research Report

   This survey based report presents the findings of 271 executives questioned on their current ERM practices.

3. From Risk Management To Risk Strategy: Mid-Markets

   October 2005 | Research Report

   This survey based report presents the facts and figures on Mid Market companies increasing utilization of Risk Management Strategies.

G

1. Getting the Best of Volatility: Managing Risk and Creating Opportunity

   May 2003 | Executive Action Report

   While there is great risk in these volatile times, there is also great opportunity for those businesses that know what to do.

H

1. Handling a Corporate Crisis

   August 2012 | Director Notes

   In today’s climate, securities and financial firms are likely to face some enforcement proceedings that create a situation fraught with potential pitfalls. This report discusses 10 prescriptions for handling these situations well.

I

1. Is It the Real Thing?

   January 2010 | The Conference Board Review

   Counterfeiting is a bigger problem than you probably think.

J

1. "Just Say No": If only fighting bribery were that simple

   April 2013 | The Conference Board Review

   An expansive look at bribery today and how both companies and individual executives should handle sticky situations.

K

1. Keep It Simple: Getting Your Arms Around Enterprise Risk Management

   October 2005 | Executive Action Report

   The savviest companies approach to Enterprise Risk Management is to focus on the fundamentals. Is your company one of them?

2. Key Questions in Pandemic Planning

   May 2009 | Executive Action Report

   This report addresses questions of concern to business managers across sectors, industries, and regions in light of the current resurgence of a global pandemic health threat.

L

1. Leveraging Corporate Security for Business Growth and Improved Performance: The Transformative Effect of 9/11

   September 2012 | Council Perspectives

   Security has become a core function, embedded in disciplines like finance, law, human resources, quality, supply chain, marketing, and operations.

M

1. Managing Human Capital Risk

   July 2011 | Research Report

   This report presents the results of a survey of 161 companies on the state of their human capital risk assessment and management in answer to five key questions.

2. Managing Reputation Risk and Reward

   March 2009 | Research Report

   This report examines the challenges companies face as they work to safeguard and enhance their reputations among customers, investors, employees, and other stakeholders.

3. Managing Reputation Risk and Reward

   April 2009 | Key Findings

   This report examines the challenges companies face as they work to safeguard and enhance their reputations among customers, investors, employees, and other stakeholders.

4. Managing Supply Chain Risks

   April 2003 | Executive Action Report

   "Just-in-time" supply chain management, while providing the needed speed and visibility to operate in today's complex supply chain environment, also exposes companies to large-scale disruptions, especially in times of conflict.

5. Minimizing Risk and Maintaining Ethics in Asia–Pacific

   March 2005 | Executive Action Report

   In order to cope successfully when doing business in the Asia-Pacific world, one must take into consideration the region's unique culture and the higher incidence of certain kinds of risks.

6. Marketing Monster: When executives begin to believe their own hype.

   October 2012 | The Conference Board Review

   BP offers a cautionary tale about how a company can fall victim to its own deceptive empowerment marketing strategy. An excerpt from Jonah Sachs' book "Winning the Story Wars."

N

1. Navigating Politics: Rethink your company's political spending—before the next election cycle

   January 2013 | The Conference Board Review

   Bruce Freed and Karl Sandstrom argue that companies should take the opportunity to closely examine whether their political spending is in line with their political and societal priorities and stances.

2. Navigating Risk — The Business Case for Security

   October 2006 | Research Report

   This report details survey results, regarding managing and mitigating risk, of 213 senior corporate executives working for a broad range of companies.

3. No Company Is an Island: Building Resilient Communities

   June 2012 | Executive Action Report

   A business is only as resilient as the communities in which it operates.

4. New Normal: Acceptable Loss

   October 2011 | The Conference Board Review

   Columnist Paul B. Brown argues that, when launching new ventures, companies need to rethink risk to account for expected gains and losses.

P

1. Pandemic Preparedness: Frequently Asked Questions

   September 2006 | Executive Action Report

   The Conference Board has presented a number of programs to help businesses better prepare for and understand the challenges posed by an avian flu or other human influenza pandemic. Here we address the recurring questions elicited by these programs.

2. Planning for Energy-Based Business Risks

   December 2002 | Executive Action Report

   It is one of the true ironies of our times: growing concern over the future of energy at a time of abundant and generally inexpensive supplies of traditional energy forms. How should a company respond?

3. Preparedness in the Private Sector - 2010

   October 2010 | Research Report

   This report analyzes the findings of a 2010 survey on business security, and compares them to findings from prior surveys in 2007 and 2009. In 2010 a component to measure integration of the security function with enterprise risk management was added.

4. Preparedness in the Private Sector - 2010

   October 2010 | Key Findings

   This report analyzes the findings of a 2010 survey on business security, and compares them to findings from prior surveys in 2007 and 2009. In 2010 a component to measure integration of the security function with enterprise risk management was added.

5. Preparedness in the Private Sector – 2011

   October 2011 | Research Report

   This report is based on a survey of executives regarding their companies’ resilience planning and security planning. The survey asked about companies’ levels of physical security, IT security, business continuity, crisis management, and pandemic planning.

6. Preparedness in the Private Sector: 2012 Report

   December 2012 | Research Report

   This report addresses joint resilience planning with local communities, supply chain resilience, effective employee training and communications, contingency plans for employees, and employee personal resilience as a business issue.

7. Potential Cost and Value of ERM

   March 2013 | Director Notes

   Companies are often skeptical of the value of enterprise risk management, and whether the results justify the cost, effort, and challenge of implementing a meaningful process. This report considers some of those concerns and highlights the value of ERM.

R

1. Recession Lessons for Mid-Market CFOs: Successfully Obtaining Loans in the New World of Credit

   September 2009 | Executive Action Report

   Even though signs of an economic recovery are emerging, recession challenges and a shutdown of easy credit have changed the lending world for CFOs of small- and mid-sized firms

2. Reputation Risk: A Corporate Governance Perspective

   December 2007 | Research Report

   This report is intended to increase the awareness of reputation risk as a corporate governance matter and offer guidance on how corporate boards can approach their fiduciary responsibilities in this area.

3. Responding to Hurricanes: Lessons for Emergency Preparedness

   February 2011 | Executive Action Report

   This Executive Action includes issues and checklists for companies who are preparing their own response plans.

4. Risk Matters: Why and How Corporate Boards Should Become Involved

   March 2013 | Research Report

   This report specifies how to solidify defenses against multiple types of risk, and the role of the board in each area as separate risk strategies become one whole consolidated effort instead of many parts of a company's risk management program.

5. Risk in the Boardroom

   May 2013 | Director Notes

   Today, more than ever, boards are expected to thoroughly assess key business risks and ensure that the enterprise is equipped to mitigate them. This Director Notes discusses current corporate risk oversight practices of directors of U.S. public companies.

6. Risky Business
   Is Enterprise Risk Management Losing Ground?

   September 2007 | Research Report

   Enterprise risk management continues to be the approach most used by companies wanting a thorough, well-thought out plan to understand and manage risks. But how far are these companies going to integrate risk management throughout their businesses?

7. Role of U.S. Corporate Boards in Enterprise Risk Management

   June 2006 | Research Report

   The Conference Board with McKinsey & Company and KPMG's Audit Committee Institute conducted research on the role of U.S. corporate boards in Enterprise Risk Management; the findings are reported here.

8. Role of the Board in Turbulent Times: Overseeing Risk Management and Executive Compensation

   December 2008 | Executive Action Report

   This report highlights "pressure points" for boards to consider, including practical actions that can be followed to help ensure directors fully meet their fiduciary responsibilities toward shareholders.

S

1. Safeguarding Intellectual Property and Addressing Corruption in the Global Supply Chain

   December 2012 | Research Report

   Guarding against IP infringement and violation of anti-corruption laws among employees is difficult enough for multinational companies. It is even more challenging to prevent inappropriate behavior by the employees and contracted workers of third parties.

2. Security Metrics as a Management Tool

   April 2008 | Executive Action Report

   Modern security management requires a toolkit of effective metrics to relate security operations to the reduction of risk.

3. Security as a Critical Component of Corporate Defense

   July 2010 | Executive Action Report

   The board’s primary responsibility is to provide vision, strategic oversight, and support to a corporate defense program designed to safeguard stakeholder interests.

4. Strategic Risk Management: A Primer for Directors

   July 2012 | Director Notes

   This report describes the factors that are driving the need for board-level strategic risk management, outlines a strategic risk assessment process, and offers recommendations for integrating risk management in strategy execution and measurement.

5. Strengthening the Weakest Link: Building Resilient Global Supply Chains

   June 2012 | Executive Action Report

   Although the benefits of global supply chains have been significant, they have also made companies more vulnerable to disruptions.

T

1. Trust No One: Understanding the price of business intelligence—and counterintelligence

   April 2013 | The Conference Board Review

   A former CIA agent explains that the key to business counterintelligence is to avoid ever falling victim to information thieves who may target you without your even knowing it.

V

1. Value at Work: The Risks and Opportunities of Human Capital Measurement and Reporting

   May 2002 | Research Report

   This study focuses on why and how companies are measuring their HC, how they are creating and using HC measures; and why and how they elect or decline to report HC measures to the investment community.

W

1. Water Worries: How Incorporating Long-Term Risk into Strategic Planning Pays Off

   June 2012 | Council Perspectives

   How companies manage risk, opportunity, and scarcity today will determine the long-term value they create for stakeholders and society, and the world’s dwindling water resources are a pivotal case in point.

2. What Do Corporate Directors and Senior Managers Know about Social Media?

   October 2012 | Director Notes

   This report provides insights into how senior-level decision makers in North American companies view social media, and offers recommendations for implementing a social media strategy that ties in with corporate strategy and risk management practices.

3. When a Whistleblower Makes the Call

   July 2011 | The Conference Board Review

   The ways in which employers show whistleblowers their lack of appreciation.