Five Steps to Select an Enterprise Risk Management System

By definition, the Oil and Gas Industry has an immediate perception of inherent risks. These risks are spread across many different areas including:

• Compliance related areas covering laws, politics and corporate governance
• Operational related risks affecting processes, systems and people
• Strategic risks from competitors, investors, and customers
• Financial risks which come from the economy, process failures, fines and violations

So, what can your organization do to offset these risks? Companies should find a system for managing compliance, tracking it to policies and procedures, documenting incidents and compliance related tasks including asset maintenance and ensure that training schedules are tended to.

 

This sounds like a cumbersome task. Let’s evaluate this further.

Requirement #1 – Managing Compliance

Staying current with the ever-changing regulations and standards is a cumbersome process. It may require a team of compliance officers and staff to monitor developments and changes regarding statues and rulings, rules and regulations that impact compliance initiatives and bring them to the attention of management and appropriate personnel.

Requirement #2 – Track Compliance to Policies and Procedures

Ensuring that the human capital of your organization is capitalized on should be a priority. What organizations have learned through trial and error, through experience and expert knowledge is what often shapes policies and procedures. Policies and procedures are designed to influence and determine all major decisions and actions, and all activities take place within the boundaries set by them. These can set organizations apart from one another and give a competitive advantage if they are adoptable and implemented smoothly throughout an organization to mitigate risk and ensure a clean structure.

Requirement #3 – Documenting Incidents and Tasks

Case Management in terms of Enterprise Risk Management is the proof of a resolution. A Case is any project, transaction, service or response that is opened and closed over a period of time to achieve resolution of a problem, response to an incident, or completion of a required or mandated task. A good case management system will improve processes productivity; encourage effective internal collaboration to lower compliance risks and provide a framework for crisis management.

Requirement #4 – Asset Management

Assets management involves the balancing of costs, opportunities and risks against the desired performance of assets, to achieve the organizational objectives. Asset management is a systematic process of operating, maintaining, upgrading and disposing of assets cost-effectively while ensuring safety compliance. A good ERM system will tie assets to compliance requirements and standards.

Requirement #5 – Training Schedules

Training can cover broad areas of risk management. A training program that focuses on risk, compliance and governance will benefit an organization and provide a broad range of benefits including reducing fines due to better understanding of compliance rules. A Learning Management System for personnel will ensure appropriate skill sets and expertise.  There are countless variations of training needed within an organization, but managing schedules and tracking the completion of these courses should be tracked. They can be tracked to compliance requirements, policies and procedures and risk management.

These five requirements are also the steps you need to take to find a solution. A solution definitely means a regulatory compliance software that will meet these five requirements AND provide a dashboard for oversight. You will have alerts and an overview of an organizations progress to meeting compliance.