Dun & Bradstreet recently released a study that examined how today’s finance leaders manage risk.
The study, Risk Revolution, found that while finance executive focus on business profitability, their responsibilities have expanded to include sharing data across their organizations and adopting emerging tools that manage global risk.
“With economic and political uncertainty across so much of the world, we found that finance leaders are struggling to manage risk effectively,” said Eric Dowdell, global head of Dun & Bradstreet’s Trade Credit business. “Finance leaders report they are aware of and encouraged by the possibilities of modern, data-driven tools to drive better business outcomes, yet sophistication and adoption remain alarmingly low.”
Among the study’s key findings:
Monitoring risks in a business’ customer, supplier or partner base is the top challenge finance leaders are facing, with 38 percent of respondents saying this is their biggest concern.
Forecasting the risk of their business’ supplier, customer or partner success was the No. 2 concern of finance leaders, including geopolitical risk, technical disruption, NAFTA renegotiations and the pace of innovation.
Most finance leaders are not effectively managing data to mitigate risk, the survey found. Over 60 percent of respondents reported that their data currently exists in “organizational silos” with over half reporting difficultly sharing and using data to drive their risk management initiatives.
Less than 20 percent of respondents said their company’s teams are “advanced” when it comes to the usage of modern risk management tools. The survey said leveraging blockchain, artificial intelligence or machine learning would benefit finance leaders in this regard.
