While evaluating business risk companies usually turn to sources of external threats. Often however, self-induced weaknesses outnumber those caused by factors outside the organisation. Remaining unnoticed, many of them become gradually accepted as a norm - some stay hidden behind departmental doors, and others are being lost in overcrowded, disconnected information systems. Accumulation of these invisible threats usually manifests as 'sudden’ ‘unexplainable’ disruptions, later defined as unavoidable or the result of business complexities.
They are not only damaging for businesses but have wider social, economic and environmental implications. Continuous rise in losses well illustrate the seriousness of problems arising from poor evaluation of business risks.
The inherited postulate that company must always grow to be successful, without much consideration of infrastructural and resource limitations brought in more disruptiveness and instability making successful management and business control a daring task.
For many years, the industry development has been mainly driven by traffic growth and short term profit, with less interest in synchronised development with service providers, airports, ATC, investment in people and other less visible but not less important components necessary to ensure business longevity. These are the main reasons behind the growing industry losses and deterioration in quality of service at busiest world airports.
All these and other inherited problems cannot be repaired overnight. We need to accept that they are here to stay for years to come and find out how to cope with them more successfully, gradually improving the system efficiency, and minimising the business risks.
One of the less explored but powerful ways of achieving this goal is through the process of disruption risk management. It focuses on critical disruptions, and works backwards towards their true, multiple, intertwined origins. During this process, explicit and tacit information need to be used to evaluate business risk and contribute to more responsible business governance. This doesn’t require big investments, the method is not complicated, and it doesn’t take long before the first results show up.
