While the resilience of the company in the face of risks is more than ever a strategic subject, they are gradually starting to speak out on the subject, but not always in a differentiating way.
The Covid-19 crisis has shown it: the increasing power of risks and their growing interconnection can destabilize businesses, economic sectors, and even entire sections of the economy in a matter of months. Faced with these upheavals, all companies are not equal, some showing themselves to be more resilient, more adapted to changes in the world or more quick to reinvent themselves. This obvious observation leads to another, even simpler: the governance of a company’s risk is today an asset as strategic as its financial policy or its social responsibility (the three are often correlated). How can companies then enhance their risk management?
A growing voice but not very mature
In recent years, they have had regulatory obligations in the Universal Registration Document (DEU), through the Risks chapter, the Declaration of Extra-Financial Performance or the vigilance plan. But the reports that they make of it remain very operational, often not very strategic and especially reserved for the very expert audiences of this document.
For about two years, risk governance has also become one of the expectations of the Integrated Report: 65% of SBF 120 companies that published an integrated report in 2019 thus address risk governance, compared to 52% for the 2018 edition. This is a first step: it shows that a growing number of companies today consider this information to be important for a wider audience, investors, employees, suppliers, partners, customers, etc.
Several signs show, however, that this speech is still not mature. Risk has not found its place in the strategic narrative of the company. Within the integrated report, it is therefore sometimes presented in the Group’s identity card, and at other times in governance, performance or even in responsibility. And the range of content offered remains very limited and has little identity, proof that companies are not yet fully ready to distinguish themselves on the issue of risks.
Three types of discourse
Three typologies of discourse emerge, however, showing how companies give risk a more strategic place:
- A speech of reassurance: Supported by companies operating in rapidly changing sectors or whose performance has disappointed, it focuses on the organization’s ability to keep its commitments thanks to the control and understanding of external threats or intrinsic to its model.
- A speech of competitiveness: for BtoB or BtoC players positioned in very competitive markets, risk management can be an integral part of the company’s value proposition. Controlling your risks means guaranteeing the solidity of your supply chain, the performance of its products and services, its ability to innovate.
- A speech of responsibility: When the company is faced with strong reputation issues or has made its socio-environmental transition a strong strategic focus, risk management can be valued for its ability to protect stakeholders in the short and long term. Business risks then merge with “CSR” risks to provide a 360 ° image of how the company understands and “takes care” of its ecosystem.
Whatever the axis chosen, we invite companies to ask themselves three questions in order to make their speech more strategic and more attractive: how is my approach to risks differentiating? How can I promote its assets to my audiences? And above all, how can it fit positively into my “corporate story”?
Find out more about Angie’s expertise in CSR strategy, communication and mobilization
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