Exploring Strategic Risk

About the Survey
The findings in this report are based on a global survey conducted in the spring of 2013 by Forbes Insights, on behalf of Deloitte.

It includes insights from more than 300 respondents from the Americas (33%), Europe/Middle East/Africa (33%), and Asia/Pacific (34%). Nearly all respondents were C-level executives (263), board members (22) or specialized risk executives (21).

Surveyed companies came from all five major industry sectors (consumer/industrial products, life sciences/healthcare, technology/media/telecommunications, energy/resources and financial services), and all had annual revenues in excess of US$1 billion (or equivalent).

Key Findings

• Strategic risk is an area of major focus: 81% of surveyed companies now have an explicit focus on managing strategic risks.
• Reputation is cited as the #1 risk – not just overall, but for most individual industry sectors.
• Strategic risk management is a CEO and board-level priority. Two thirds (67%) of the surveyed companies say the CEO, board or board risk committee has oversight when it comes to managing strategic risk.
• Technology enablers and disrupters, such as social, mobile, and big data, could threaten established business models, and 91% of companies surveyed have changed their business strategies since those technologies began to emerge.
• Human capital and innovation pipeline are expected to be the top strategic assets that businesses will need to invest in.