Manage the risk; not the line item details

Operational risk management and compliance management today require levels of management and board reporting. Traditional risk management annual reporting was constructed of key status of compliance programs, including approvals of policies and action plans.

Today, risk management and compliance teams need to provide more nimble and flexible responses to complaint management, compliance issues, and emerging risks. To stay on top of the issues requires a new approach in monitoring trends– and that starts with metrics.

There are leading and lagging metrics that are indicators of a potential risk or issue. As compliance expands to new strategic risks, operational risk, and consumer protection, there are new areas to monitor for triggering the need for action.

Data can be used to tell your story internally to justify business cases, or to quantify the implication of a risk. Data can also be used to balance the compliance perspective – monitoring credit/refund rates or complaint to order ratios can show the scale or importance of reported issues, based on the big picture.

Think about the story you need to tell when you create metrics: