The many different types of risk in mining include those associated with performance, regulations, health and safety and increasingly reputational risk. The loss of a license could have a major impact on corporate reputation, brand and shareholder value and in some cases, even business survival.
Enterprise Risk Management is increasingly recognised among the most important corporate governance and management tools. It is a means to identify, analyse, evaluate and respond to risk across an organisation in an integrated and sustainable manner. Strategic Thought Group claims its Active Risk Manager “is the world’s most widely deployed truly comprehensive Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) software package used by household names in all sectors including Rio Tinto.
The management of risk should be an enterprise-wide operation. Therefore, it is vital to combine top-down strategic objectives and risks, with bottom-up information from the people who often know best about day-to-day activities – in the case of mining those out in the field.
Active Risk Manager software delivers a broad range of capabilities with varied access options to suit the needs of novice and occasional users through to risk professionals. This type of approach allows an organisation to embed a risk-aware culture throughout its business with the help of easy-to-use software without the need for expensive training which can be a challenge on remote mine sites.
It has a module specifically designed to capture risks and opportunity information from all employees. ARM Collaborative Workshop Solution (CWS) was developed in association with a major customer organisation to facilitate risk collection workshops in the field. CWS downloads the corporate risk structures and polices and can be run offline. The data collected can then be synchronised with the corporate system to ensure all relevant risks and opportunities are captured to create a complete picture for management.
ARM Collaborative Workshop Solution
| CWS Functionality | CWS Benefits |
| Rapid risk and opportunity capture | Quickly builds a picture of risk and opportunity across the business |
| Instant analysis of ‘what-if’ scenarios | Ensures all relevant risks and opportunities are collated and analysed |
| Graphical display of risks and opportunities including histograms and pie charts | Drives collaboration within an organization and breaks down silos |
| Snapshot reporting during workshops | Improves data integrity to enable informed decision making |
| Voice recorder to collect comments and reminders | Helps embed a ‘risk culture’ |
ARM features a range of user-types to suit the needs and skill levels of all employees from risk professional to occasional users and managers. It can be an affordable way to bring occasional business users into an integrated, enterprise wide system. It allows a view of responses and feedback on risks submitted which means that people can see what has happened to a risk they may have added. This encourages further use. ARM is particularly appropriate where spreadsheets have been used in the past for risk management as the familiarity of the screens leads to early acceptance of the system.
Finally ARM for Microsoft® Outlook uses the email software with which most people are familiar to provide access to the enterprise risk management information and process. It delivers key risk information and reports directly to inboxes making it ideally suited for the needs of busy mining executives whose involvement in the risk process is likely to be focused on report review, approvals and strategic decision making.