Risk Management
In an increasingly global world, managing business risk is becoming more important as the impact of unforeseen events can have catastrophic consequences for your business enterprise. As resources of all kinds are always limited in some way, it is not possible to avoid all risks. Having a structured approach to risk management will assist your enterprise in planning and minimising the impact of risks when they do occur.
Project risk management
Identifying and then managing risks has been part of SeaTec’s business since its conception in the late 1980s. Areas in which SeaTec have experience of project risk management include:
- Design and operation of assets across all trades of the shipping industry.
- Onshore facilities in the defence and leisure industries
- Offshore installations in the oil & gas sector
- Assessment of security risks for commercial and leisure shipping.
Strategic risk management
As well as the project level, SeaTec have experience of assisting organisations with their long-term planning and strategic risk management.
Recent projects include working with a major offshore contractor to determine the risk of continuing to operate vessels beyond their normal design life. By identifying which aspects of the assets presented the greatest risk to future business, the client was able to prioritise resources for investment and identify those assets that should be retired. With this information, the client was then able to construct a procurement programme around their existing assets without losing capability.
A typical SeaTec risk workshop
The SeaTec risk workshop normally begins with a concerns and issues session where the project is discussed with the key project stakeholders in an open session with no boundaries or hierarchies. This ensures that nobody feels constrained, encourages free thinking and allows consideration of the most unlikely. SeaTec have a strong record of experience in facilitating such sessions with many positive reactions to the structured “what if?” technique (SWIFT) used.
Once the concerns and issues have been established, the next step is to return through the list and establish the severity of the consequences of a risk if it were to be realised and then consider the probability that the risk will occur. The approach to the characterisation of the risk can either be qualitative or quantitative depending on the situation under consideration. Categories of probability and severity are agreed between the client and SeaTec prior to the workshop and can either be based on SeaTec ‘s own standards or they can be tailored to specific requirements of a client.
With the consequence and probability established then the risks can then be ranked in an order of priority. The outcome from the prioritisation would be a risk report, summarising and categorising the risks in a formal manner which allows the risks to be promulgated to persons outside of the workshop. By establishing risk priority the client can then allocate resources can be more effectively and focus can be placed on those that are considered a high priority.
