Departmental and informational silos are a common threat to risk managers — limiting your view of risk, and therefore, limiting your ability to calculate, articulate and mitigate the full scope of risks facing your organization. However, with the help of risk management technology, silos can be broken down — giving you the opportunity to make a big impact and be a success.
In fact, breaking down silos is one of five steps recommended for risk management success. That’s because data transparency and cooperative work arrangements among different departments — perhaps more than anything else — can shift a risk management program to being more strategic, and therefore, more successful.
Integrate data from different departments for transparency, success
While risk managers cannot single-handedly eliminate all silos, they can certainly lead the way by integrating risk management information like incident intake data, customer data, vendor risk data, claims administration data, property data, financial data, and much more with data from areas outside the traditional reach of the risk management department. This, of course, is no easy task without appropriate tools to facilitate that integration.
Whereas silo-inducing spreadsheets “speak the language” of only one department or one type of data set in each document, the right risk management technology will serve as a single central repository for disparate data that is automatically standardized into information everyone can understand.
Further, while spreadsheets almost always feature rearview data that must be manually collected and updated, risk management technology features up-to-the-second data that is essentially always collected and updated automatically thanks to data import and other input tools.
A consolidated system that operates in the cloud makes it easy to access and analyze risk management data with just a few clicks instead of having to submit a request for IT or vendor resources. Similarly, it’s just as easy to extract data like a PDF, spreadsheet, chart or CSV file from the central repository.
All of this leads to data transparency, which serves to enlighten risk managers with the knowledge needed to perform at the highest level.
Automating workflows among departments drives action, results
Beyond offering data transparency across departments, the right risk management technology also automates workflows — giving directions to the right individuals in the right departments at the right times.
Rather than rely on manual phone calls and emails to other departments to propel work forward, you can count on your system to automatically trigger notifications, next steps and reminders — as well as track follow through and escalate issues not being addressed.
All this encourages collaboration and accountability, as well as keeps risk management initiatives moving forward. Not only will you be able to “get things done,” as a result, but you’ll also have more time to engage in strategic activities instead of being mired down in administrative minutia. Such results, of course, will likely mean success for you, your team and the organization as a whole.
Success imagined: What do you see?
If you had a central repository, integrated data systems and a powerful risk management work platform with verifiable data, what additional value could you be providing?
- Could the risk management department be instrumental in subrogation by improving the organization’s ability to search and find incoming certificates of insurance?
- Would the risk management team be more successful in tying financials to loss control initiatives?
- Could you report more effectively with timely and accurate loss ratios?
- Could the risk management team be a leader in the organization’s operational risk efforts?
The right risk management technology will help you to succeed in these areas, and likely in your career as a result. Read this white paper about achieving success as a risk manager with risk management technology to learn more.
