Risk management is a central part of any organisation's strategic management. It is a rigorous approach to assessing and addressing the risks from all sources that threaten the achievements of an organisation's strategic objectives.
Risk management should methodically address all the risks surrounding the organisation's activities, past, present and especially future.

The risks affecting an organisation can result from factors both external :

• Competition
• Customer demand and changes in it
• Regulatory changes
• Suppliers
• Interest rates
• Credit

or internal to the organisation:

• Liquidity and cash flows
• Accounting controls
• Products and services
• M&A integration
• Research and Development
• Information systems

In the recent past companies considered risks as a threat to the achievement of their strategic and operational objectives. More and more companies consider risk as an opportunity for gaining a competitive advantage by correctly identifying which risks the organisation can handle better than its rivals can.

Enterprises are thus now willing to define and implement a coordinated way of managing risks, which will create competitive advantage, improve shareholder value, provide responses to increasing regulatory requirements and secure the business continuity and strategic objectives.