Risk Management Survey 2019: WA ranks economic shock as its top risk

Governance Institute of Australia released its 2019 Risk Management Survey, which saw nearly 500 Australian risk managers and governance leaders provide their insights into the unique challenges facing their organisations, both now and into the future.

As an exclusive for Business News, Governance Institute has shared the WA results to show the specific risks in your state.

WA professionals ranked economic shock as their top risk for the next 12 months. Perhaps not surprising considering WA's economy ranks 7th out of the 8 states and territories according to CommBank’s latest State of the States report.  

WA respondents identified the top five risks for the next 12 months in their industry as:

1. Economic shock
2. Cybercrime
3. Political risk
4. Regulatory or legislative change
5. Increased competition

Interestingly, this differs from the national response, which ranked the top five risks as

1. Regulatory or legislative change
2. Damage to brand or reputation
3. Increased competition
4. Talent attraction / retention
5. Cybercrime

Looking further into the future, WA professionals ranked cybercrime as their top risk in the next 3 to 5 years. Followed by increased competition highlighting the competitive pressures local companies are feeling from multi-national giants, such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook.

Here are the top five risks for WA for the next 3-5 years:

1. Cybercrime
2. Increased competition
3. Regulatory or legislative changes
4. Political risk
5. Economic shock

Again, this differs from the national response, which ranked the top five risks for the next 3-5 years as:

1. Regulatory or legislative change
2. Disruption / failure to innovate
3. Increased competition
4. Cybercrime
5. Damage to brand or reputation

In the national response, almost unanimously across all respondents, regardless of industry, organisation size and job title, ‘Regulatory reform / legislative change’ was chosen as the top risk both across the next 12 months, and the next three to five years. For WA, ‘Regulatory reform / legislative change’ also ranked in the top five risks for both the next 12 months and the next three to five years. 

While WA respondents felt that their organisations highly valued risk management (79% agreed/strongly agreed), over 50% of respondents highlighted the need for ‘better tools and resources’ to manage risk and ‘clarity of purpose and strategy’ (31%) from senior leadership as key areas of concern. It’s no surprise that demand for governance and risk management skills is on the rise.

WA responses came from a variety of sectors. These include in ranked order:

1. Public sector
2. Healthcare
3. Mining
4. Finance and insurance
5. Education and training

Want to continue the conversation on Australia’s top risks?

If you rank economic shock as one of your top risks, join your peers to tease out the economic state of the nation at Governance Institute’s National Conference fireside chat with Paul Bloxham, Chief Economist (Australia, New Zealand and Global Commodities), HSBC Bank Australia.

The conference line-up also includes a session on effective defence and sound cyber-security strategies with Prerana Mehta, Chief of Ecosystem Development at AustCyber and Lyn Nicholson FGIA, General Counsel, Corporate Group at Holding Redlich.

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