Decision and risk management software CIO

Enterprise risk management is the process of planning, leading and controlling the activities of an organization in order to minimize the effects of risk on an organization's capital and earnings. In recent years, external factors have fueled a heightened interest by organizations in enterprise risk management. Industry and government regulatory bodies, as well as investors, have begun to scrutinize companies' risk management policies and procedures for compliance. In an increasing number of industries, boards of directors are required to review and report on the adequacy of risk management processes in their organizations.

In this package, learn how organizations and their CIOs can practice enterprise risk management holistically, including implementing the proper risk management methodology, data protection solutions, network access control, cloud computing security and compliance risk management. You will find news, trends, case studies and other resources aimed at providing enterprise risk management solutions to help you make informed decisions in all facets of your organization.

This guide is part of SearchCIO.com's CIO Briefing series, which is designed to give IT leaders strategic guidance and advice that addresses the management and decision-making aspects of timely topics. For a complete list of topics covered to date, visit the CIO Briefing section.

According to the Balanced Scorecard framework, in addition to marketing or sales budgets and overall revenue and profits, enterprises should measure intangible assets such as customer relationships, excellence in process operations, employee skills, data and information systems and even the corporate culture.

"If you can't measure, you can't manage and you can't improve upon your corporate success, " explained Balanced Scorecard co-developer Robert Kaplan during a presentation at the recent Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in National Harbor, Md.

And today, organizations need to include risk management among the key performance indicators that they measure.

"Financial performance is a lag indicator, " Kaplan said. "Now we're seeing the consequences of not making risk management a strategic part of strategy, " such as the riskiness of corporate investments that have resulted in huge losses to financial services firms.