Enterprise Risk Management

Living and working in today’s environment involves many risks. The processes used to make decisions in this environment should consider the need both to keep people gainfully employed (through increased economic activity) and to protect humanity from threats arising from human activity. Terrorism led to the gas attack on the Japanese subway system in 1995, to 9/11 in 2001, and to the bombings of the Spanish and British transportation systems in 2004 and 2005 respectively. But nature has been far more deadly, with hurricanes in Florida, tsunamis in Japan, earthquakes in China, and volcanoes in Iceland. These locations only represent recent, well-publicized events. Nature can strike at us anywhere. We need to consider the many risks that exist, and to come up with strategies, controls, and regulations that accomplish a complex combination of goals.