Risk Management

Chal­len­ges like these sim­ply can’t be over­come wi­thout ef­fec­tive, ef­fi­ci­ent cor­po­rate ma­nage­ment and an ad­apta­ble cor­po­rate or­ga­niza­tion. A risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem that in­clu­des in­ter­nal mo­ni­to­ring, ef­fec­tive con­trol­ling for sub­si­dia­ries, and a far-sigh­ted early warning ca­pa­bi­lity is es­sen­tial. It not only ma­kes sure that you stay wi­thin the law, but also helps safe­guard the fu­ture and build the com­pany’s las­ting va­lue.
Any en­tre­pre­neur knows risk is in­evi­ta­ble, and that its ef­fects are hard to pre­dict. Here a sys­te­ma­tic pro­cess helps re­co­gnize and as­sess risks promptly. We can help you in­tro­duce this kind of risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem at every stage, whe­ther in con­cep­tion, in gui­ding the pro­ject, or in the skills and con­tent nee­ded to put the sys­tem into ope­ra­tion. You also be­ne­fit from our years of ex­pe­ri­ence with many dif­fe­rent si­zes of com­pa­nies from a wide range of in­dus­tries when it co­mes to choo­sing a com­pu­te­ri­zed risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem.

We’ll be happy to as­sess the risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem al­re­ady in place to see how it might be re­fi­ned fur­ther. We pay spe­cial at­ten­tion to whe­ther the sys­tem com­ple­tely co­vers your com­pany’s risk si­tua­tion, and whe­ther the early warning me­cha­nisms are wor­ka­ble in prac­tice.

Eb­ner Stolz’s ex­pe­ri­en­ced prac­ti­tio­ners of­fer you a skil­led team of ad­vi­sors in every di­sci­pline, who al­ways have cur­rent de­ve­lop­ments on their ra­dar and ne­ver lose sight of mee­ting com­pli­ance re­qui­re­ments as part of a highly prac­tical risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem.

Our services at a glance

• Im­ple­men­ta­tion of Risk Ma­nage­ment Sys­tems
• Quick-Check Risk Ma­nage­ment
  
• Eva­lua­tion of an Exis­ting Risk Ma­nage­ment Sys­tem
• Ex­pan­ding into a Full-Fledged Com­pli­ance Ma­nage­ment Sys­tem
• Spe­cial Is­sue: Risk Ma­nage­ment for Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Pro­vi­ders

Implementation of Risk Management Systems

1. Risk Stra­tegy For­mu­la­tion
   We will help you de­ter­mine how high your com­pany’s risk-bea­ring ca­pa­city is. In this con­nec­tion, there are spe­cial cor­po­rate struc­tu­ring chal­len­ges that we will help you meet. We will work with you to de­ve­lop ge­ne­ral prin­ci­ples for hand­ling risks de­pen­ding on your com­pany’s risk ap­pe­tite.
   
   
2. Risk Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion
   We will work clo­sely with your Risk Ma­na­ger to con­duct a risk in­ven­tory. Our broad ex­pe­ri­ence in working with other com­pa­nies helps us ask the right ques­ti­ons. Al­ter­na­tively we can de­sign a risk in­ven­tory for you which you can then con­duct your­self. Na­tu­rally we can also re­com­mend the best soft­ware for this task.
   
   
3. Risk Ana­ly­sis
   We will ana­lyze the risks and re­late them to one ano­ther. Many risks can­cel each other out, while others in­ten­sify each other. The risks must also be eva­lua­ted from the per­spec­tive of a group of com­pa­nies, since risks at the le­vel of sub­si­dia­ries have a dif­fe­rent re­le­vance for the group as a whole than for the sub­si­di­ary its­elf.
   
   
4. Risk As­sess­ment
   We will work with your Risk Ma­na­ger to as­sess the risks, using soft­ware such as Ex­cel, so that we can pro­vide you with a cu­st­omi­zed Ex­cel tool. The as­sess­ment will be car­ried out on the ba­sis of a risk ma­trix that we have de­fi­ned with you in ad­vance.
   
   
5. Risk Ma­nage­ment
   If you wish to go beyond a mere early-warning sys­tem, we can use state-of-the-art mea­su­res to ma­nage risks. To do so, we must de­ter­mine how to test the ef­fec­tiv­en­ess of these mea­su­res. As we pro­vide our con­sul­ting ser­vices, we of­ten dis­co­ver risks for which there are not yet any risk ma­nage­ment mea­su­res or the ones in place are in­suf­fi­ci­ent. We will de­ve­lop new risk ma­nage­ment mea­su­res and can work with you to de­ve­lop a plan for im­ple­men­ting them. The by­pro­duct of many con­sul­ting pro­jects is a bet­ter per­mea­tion of your pro­ces­ses, thus im­pro­ving them and ma­king them more se­cure.
   
   
6. Com­pa­ri­son with the Pa­ra­me­ters of your Risk Stra­tegy
   We re­com­mend re­gu­larly com­pa­ring your risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem and the de­fi­ned pa­ra­me­ters with the ac­tual con­di­ti­ons (is the sys­tem being car­ried out?) and the com­pany’s goals/stra­te­gies, which may have chan­ged (is it still the right sys­tem for us?). Chan­ges in mar­ket de­mands can re­quire chan­ges in risk re­por­ting, as new fields of risk must be de­fi­ned, or your risk in­ven­to­ries may be con­duc­ted too of­ten (or not of­ten enough) and have to be ad­jus­ted.
   
   

We can pro­vide you with a tho­rough, easy-to-un­der­stand do­cu­men­ta­tion of the ent­ire pro­cess. This will usually take the form of a hand­book. Thanks to our mo­du­les and ex­pe­ri­ence from nu­me­rous pro­jects we can use a num­ber of com­pon­ents to en­sure that the pro­cess is as lean and ef­fi­ci­ent as pos­si­ble.

Quick-Check Risk Management

Would you like to know right away whe­ther your cur­rent sys­tem is up to date? Whe­ther your sys­tem meets the re­qui­re­ments of the IDW PS PS 981 stan­dard? Or whe­ther there are in­di­vi­dual as­pects of your sys­tem that can be im­pro­ved?
It will take one of our ex­pe­ri­en­ced spe­cia­lists at most a half day to eva­luate your sys­tem (de­pen­ding on its com­ple­xity) and pro­vide you with con­crete sug­ges­ti­ons for im­pro­ving it. You can then im­ple­ment these sug­ges­ti­ons your­self. Na­tu­rally we can also as­sist you, if you so de­sire.

Evaluation of an Existing Risk Management System

Our ser­vices range from eva­lua­ting com­pli­ance with the ba­sic stan­dards, to au­diting of sys­tems when such au­dits are re­qui­red (such as for lis­ted com­pa­nies) or con­duc­ting volun­tary au­dits (such as at the re­quest of a su­per­vi­sory board or using the ques­ti­onn­aire un­der the Law on Ba­sic Bud­ge­tary Ru­les). We will agree with you on the scope of the as­si­gn­ment.

In prac­tice, risk ma­nage­ment sys­tems are of­ten tes­ted by In­ter­nal Au­dit. In smal­ler com­pa­nies, and even at mid-si­zed ones, there is of­ten no pro­vi­sion for a sys­te­ma­tic re­view. And at those com­pa­nies, it is a good idea to per­form such a re­view from time to time. This al­lows you to make sure that your cur­rent sys­tem is not me­rely a pa­per ti­ger and that the pro­ce­du­res you came up with are ac­tually being im­ple­men­ted.

In con­nec­tion with our au­dit, we will ob­viously not just point out weak­nes­ses but will also sug­gest pos­si­ble so­lu­ti­ons. You will be­ne­fit from our wide range of ex­pe­ri­ence, our in­ter­di­sci­pli­nary ap­proach and our know­ledge of how to im­ple­ment such sys­tems.

Expanding into a Full-Fledged Compliance Management System

Per­haps you have a risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem and are won­de­ring whe­ther it could be the ba­sis for a com­pli­ance ma­nage­ment sys­tem or whe­ther you would have to start over when you tackle com­pli­ance?

We can help you fi­gure that out. We will ana­lyze your cur­rent sys­tem, dis­cuss your ideal com­pli­ance ma­nage­ment sys­tem with you and show you how to get there. If you so de­sire, we can get your risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem into shape so that it will be re­ady to handle com­pli­ance risks in the fu­ture.

Special Issue: Risk Management for Financial Services Providers

Fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­ti­ons and fi­nan­cial ser­vices pro­vi­ders are sub­ject to spe­cial risk ma­nage­ment re­qui­re­ments.

We of­fer up-to-date in­for­ma­tion on the Ba­Fin’s mi­ni­mum risk ma­nage­ment re­qui­re­ments.
We will also be glad to as­sist with is­sues in­vol­ving your risk ma­nage­ment sys­tem. This in­clu­des au­diting your risk ma­nage­ment pro­ces­ses and showing you whe­ther your sys­tem meets the Ba­Fin’s re­qui­re­ments. At the same time, we will iden­tify any weak­nes­ses in your sys­tem. Our sug­ges­ti­ons for im­pro­ve­ment will help you enhance the qua­lity of your risks ma­nage­ment sys­tem. If you use IT ap­pli­ca­ti­ons, we can also eva­luate your in­ter­faces. This will en­sure that your data can be used pro­perly for risk ma­nage­ment pur­po­ses.