The Role Corporate Governance Plays in Risk Management

As an auditor, compliance officer or risk manager, you’re used to balancing the delicate processes that impact your company’s performance. Relying on a siloed approach, in which your teams and departments fail to share valuable information and resources with each other, can deter your ability to meet long-term business goals.

To effectively mitigate financial and reputational risks, it’s imperative to synchronize your key processes and establish company-wide collaboration. By implementing a risk-based strategy, you can duplicate your efforts to maintain compliance and proactively reduce business hazards.

Understanding Corporate Governance in the Context of Risk Management

Company directors and board members have a unique way of looking at their particular risk and regulatory landscapes. Because corporations face new risks every day, it’s essential to continually assess these structures and identify strategy-related risks that could disrupt operations.

For example, if your company’s governance and risk oversight operate separately, the road to achieving your organizational goals becomes much more complex. With a unified view of governance, risk management and compliance, your company can actively adjust corporate governance practices to address evolving challenges.

Understanding the vital role of corporate governance in your risk management strategy can help you initiate a broader-based approach. Though strategic risk-taking is a pivotal part of business growth, it requires a crucial competency in strategic risk management. This process helps organizations make better-informed decisions by looking at broad, encompassing threats that could potentially affect long-term goals.

Without robust corporate governance principles, corporations may underestimate the financial and reputational impact of strategic risk failures.

Modern corporate governance practices provide assurance that enables boards to take smarter risks. By prioritizing modern governance and proactively addressing potential issues, corporations can minimize legal and reputational risks. Additionally, a strong corporate governance framework helps facilitate new risk management practices, maintain stakeholder confidence and systemize business activities.

Governance Mechanisms That Prevent and Mitigate Risks

Companies with robust governance mechanisms may be less exposed to corporate risks, therefore, acting as a form of risk mitigation on its own. Corporate governance is a framework of internal and external mechanisms, rules, processes and practices that help prevent and mitigate risks. This framework primarily functions on the relationship between key players who navigate the organizational landscape, including:

• Board of directors
• Senior executives
• Financial statements
• Legal teams
• Finance managers
• HR executives
• IT departments
• Auditors
• Ownership structure
• Financial market
• Shareholders
• Employees
• Market of goods and services

It’s important to note that corporate governance involves so much more than making correct decisions — it emphasizes the impact of informed decision-making. Even the most robust board-level policy will struggle to make a tangible impact unless it’s implemented in day-to-day risk management operations.

The Principles of Corporate Governance

To achieve the full benefit of risk management efforts, corporations must align the interests of all stakeholders and properly impose a system of checks and balances. This alignment enables corporations to maintain the balance between their financial, social and moral obligations guided by the general principles of corporate governance.

1. Equity

The board contributes to governance by considering the interests of all stakeholders, including shareholders, customers, vendors, and employees. They uphold fairness when participating and voting in general meetings, electing and removing board members and approving fundamental corporate decisions.

A well-structured board also prevents the concentration of power through the balance of executive and non-executive roles and the expertise of diverse perspectives.

2. Disclosure and Transparency

The board provides clear and transparent communication to all shareholders and stakeholders regarding risks, conflicts of interest and financial performance in a timely manner. Any decision that could affect the material health of the organization, such as the appointment of new leadership, requires explanation, rationale, context and visibility into such processes.

3. Responsibility

The board is responsible for exercising effective oversight and good faith in their own ranks as well as in all management duties and corporate matters. The board extends appropriate due diligence, engagement, disclosure and accountability measures when operating in the interest of the company.

4. Accountability

The board fosters trust among stakeholders with regular audits, compliance checks and reports that disclose governance practices, executive compensation and risk exposure. Outlining the purpose of the company’s activities, performance and conduct demonstrates a willingness to be held accountable

5. Resilience and Sustainability

The board should uphold the company’s long-term viability by approving corporate strategies intended to build value and sustainable growth. Leadership should assess relevant sustainability issues that can impact shareholders and regulation compliance. Additionally, the board strives to adhere to ethical conduct standards, environmental sustainability and social responsibility that reflect their values and commitments.

6. Risk Management

The board should recognize the mutual influence between corporate governance and risk management. Understanding the importance of risk management in corporate governance enables the board to adopt new, transparent practices as part of an ERM strategy.

Risk management informs the board and leadership on how to operate concerning risk exposure of all business activities. With this knowledge, corporations can better monitor the status of risks and implement governance practices like internal controls and due diligence.

How Technology Helps Align Your Risk Management and Corporate Governance Frameworks

As we mentioned above, risk management informs corporate governance, and effective governance leads to successful risk management. So, how do you align them in an ever-changing business landscape? A risk-based management solution can equip your business with the tools to effectively identify, assess, mitigate, monitor and report risks.

You can streamline all governance, risk and compliance activities into one robust framework with enterprise risk management (ERM) software. With this solution, your organization can:

• See a holistic view of all business relationships and information.
• Collaborate among all levels.
• Clearly articulate risk management processes to all stakeholders.
• Optimize resource allocation.
• Reduce redundancy.
• Identify dependencies.

Compared to a siloed program, an ERM framework provides a standardized, collaborative structure for objectively prioritizing risks at all levels. Consider the ERM framework as a single source of truth. A consolidated approach eliminates the scattered, fragmented risk repositories across the organization. Now, you and other leaders can duplicate your efforts and ensure a cohesive risk identification and management strategy.

Why Trust LogicManager for Risk-Based Governance?

At LogicManager, we believe in good governance: holding each part of the organization to a high standard while empowering the enterprise to identify and mitigate risks before they materialize. We recognize that every organization has different needs, which is why we designed configurable, scalable solution packages to meet those exact needs. Since 2006, it’s been our goal to empower organizations to make positive impacts that build a better tomorrow. We care about bringing value to our customers with our expertise and tools that help them make the best decisions.

Our ERM and corporate governance program enables an enterprise-wide view of risks and accounts for interdependencies, all while supporting the integration of risk management into corporate governance. As an industry leader in SaaS-based ERM software, we prioritize helping organizations anticipate risks, uphold their reputation and boost business performance. We’re proud to consistently be recognized by our customers on G2 for our innovative solutions.

Adopt a Holistic Approach to Risk-Based Governance With LogicManager

Your organization has many obligations — meeting them can be challenging without the appropriate tools. Organizational silos create gaps in your ability to assess and mitigate risk. With an ERM platform, you can bridge the gaps between risk management and corporate governance.

We recognize that organizations need a risk-based solution to integrate all governance and risk areas. Our all-in-one ERM software is the comprehensive ERM solution you need to drive results and manage all of your information in one framework. If you want to learn more about sustaining good governance, request a demo or contact us today.