Returning to the fundamentals of risk management

This year’s survey sees cyber incidents and business interruption, including supply chain disruption, rank high on the list of concerns for one in three companies. (Photo: Andrii Yalanskyi – stock.adobe.c)

The beginning of the year marked the return of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the theme of “Cooperation in a Fragmented World”. For more than 50 years, the Davos Forum has brought together business leaders, governments, academics, and civil society experts to address and discuss the world’s most pressing challenges. Coinciding with this global event is the publication of the Allianz Risk Barometer 2023, an annual survey of more than 2,700 business leaders, risk managers, brokers and insurance specialists around the world that we have been producing for the past 12 years.

Like last year, this year’s survey sees cyber incidents and business interruption, including supply chain disruption, rank high on the list of concerns for one in three companies. Macroeconomic hazards such as the return of inflation, financial market volatility and recession move from 10th to third place, while the energy crisis is a new entry to the survey, going straight in at the fourth position. These two threats represent a major risk for a quarter of the companies surveyed, replacing in many executives’ eyes the perils of natural catastrophes, which drops from third to sixth position year-on-year, and climate change, which falls to 7th place.