None of the "traditional" risks have gone away, and the stream of events that must be responded to isn't diminishing. But in the midst of this daily activity stalemate, the organization's exposure portfolio is most likely growing in complex and unprecedented ways. Why? There are at least two critical reasons:

Disruptive technology. As digits replace bricks and mortar, they take costs out of just about every activity and make possible things that were barely thought of just a few years ago. This unstoppable trend can have serious consequences. New and different things can, and do, go wrong. Risk is aggregated and concentrated in ways not previously contemplated, and organizations can be held responsible in ways not previously experienced.
Changing expectations. The second reason is very much related to the first: Society's experiences and expectations are changing. People feel detached from large organizations, if not downright adversarial. Although users enjoy the benefits of technology, they dislike the feeling of powerlessness that seems part of the package. People are often disappointed in the behavior of organizations, and with the growth of social media, their complaints have new ways of being heard. Meanwhile, the political environment has become toxic and polarized, prompting new levels of regulatory inconsistency at the state and local level.

At the same time that adverse events can become more widely known than ever before, society has diminished tolerance for real or perceived harms. This is true of not just cyber breaches or privacy invasions. Workplace injuries and tort-based losses are increasingly unacceptable, a sign of the failure of an organization to honor its basic obligations to society and its own workforce. As injury rates continue their long secular decline (a phenomenon driven in no small part by technology), such events will increasingly become outliers. The financial consequences will be larger, the sanctions more punitive, and the victims' megaphone even louder.

Special Reports /

There's never been a better time to be a risk manager

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