Return on Investment for ERM

Many business cases for Enterprise Risk Management programs begin with what senior management can expect in terms of return on investment (ROI). While ROI may not be the best indicator of ERM success (it’s tough to quantify the monetary value of risks you’ve mitigated), there are simple and direct steps you can take to demonstrate the efficiency your program will gain through the implementation of an ERM system.

On average, risk managers spend 62% of their time on tactical, rather than strategic, activities[1]. In a 40 hour work week, that’s over 24 hours spent aggregating & mining data, building reports, and tending to disparate spreadsheets and SharePoint files. That’s time that could and should be spent managing risk.

In contrast, studies of our customer base indicate that time is cut by over three quarters, to about 6 hours per week. That’s 18 more hours developing mitigation strategies for high priorities risk, tending to areas of non-compliance, and improving the efficiency of your operations. If an average Risk Manager has a fully burdened salary of over $100k[2], your company is spending an extra $45,000 for every employee that isn’t equipped with enterprise risk management software. While traditional GRC software can cost upwards of $200,000 dollars, you can get started with ERM software that supports most young programs for only $30,000.

If you’re tasked with enterprise risk management, but expected to accomplish that task armed only with shared drives and spreadsheets, consider these numbers when making your proposal to senior management. ERM software won’t just add value to your work, it will largely eliminate the burden of managing big data so that you can spend your time strategically managing risks and preventing the next loss event.