OpenPages Survey Reveals Organizations Plan to Invest More in Risk Management in 2009

November 10, 2008

Fortune 1000 respondents expect increased GRC spending, convergence challenges in year ahead

Waltham, Mass — November 10, 2008 – OpenPages, the leading provider of enterprise GRC management solutions that optimize business performance, today announced survey results that highlight current realities and future concerns regarding risk management and other GRC activities for 2009. The survey, which polled over 150 strategic risk, governance and finance professionals from such Fortune 1000 companies as AIG, Carnival Corporation, TD Ameritrade and Duke Energy, was conducted at OPUS 2008 - the 5th Annual OpenPages User Symposium in Boston, Ma. The survey results revealed that organizations expect investment in risk management initiatives will increase in 2009 and that a software platform to help integrate and manage all of their efforts will be crucial to their success. 

Survey Results

• While industry experts predict that overall IT spending may be flat or down next year, over 90% reported that investments in GRC technology will increase or at least remain the same in 2009.
• 90% of those polled expect new laws and regulations to be introduced next year in an effort “to improve corporate risk management oversight.”
• Over 50% said that the current crisis has increased the priority of enterprise-wide risk management, and nearly 60% said that the crisis has put the risk management function in the spotlight for the CEO and board.
• Companies divulged that their biggest GRC challenge next year will be to “converge GRC initiatives across the enterprise,” and 70% characterized their current state of GRC management efforts as siloed.
• Companies also revealed that most are poised for improvement: less than 10% characterized their ERM efforts as excellent, as described by S&P’s ERM ratings categorization.

Conclusions:

• "The results of this year’s survey highlight the impact of the current financial crisis on enterprise risk management efforts: companies are focused on converging disparate risk management efforts to improve their visibility into the risk inherent within the business. Further, despite the economic slowdown, companies are willing to invest in technology to improve risk management capabilities," commented Gordon Burnes, VP sales and marketing, OpenPages. 
• "Furthermore, as companies continue to be asked to do more with less, our customers have made it clear that convergence of GRC activities is one way to save money, without compromising performance," said Burnes.

Supporting Quote from David Fisher, financial controls manager, Norwich Union Insurance (Aviva)

• "Our vision for using OpenPages is to try and go beyond SOX. Certainly, we’re looking at convergence with the Operational Risk Management (ORM) module, but at the moment we're a Financial Controls Management (FCM) user. In terms of reporting capabilities used within OpenPages' solutions, we've utilized the heat map reporting which gives us a good view of individual risks and their likelihood of impact in terms of the risk assessment we make on them. This not only gives us a good audit trail that we can use going forward for our annual scoping but it's also a clear graphical representation on a dashboard in OpenPages 5.5 for our senior level executive team."

Supporting Quote from Michael J. Duffy, CEO & president, OpenPages

• "This is a defining moment for our economic system that underscores the critical importance of enterprise risk management not just within the financial services sector but across all industries. Not only will GRC spending emerge as one of the few areas of investment in 2009, but we expect that more companies will take a more programmatic approach to risk management in 2009. We look forward to helping our customers meet this challenge and through it solidify their standing with their customers, employees, investors and shareholders."

Please contact Jessica Sutera to arrange for further quotes regarding this announcement or to request an interview with an OpenPages executive.

Multimedia:
OpenPages Flickr Page 
OpenPages Blog with additional survey findings

Relevant Links:
OpenPages Blog
Digg This
OpenPages' Del.icio.us page
Post to Del.icio.us

Technorati Tags:
Risk Management
OpenPages
GRC

About OpenPages

OpenPages is the leading provider of enterprise GRC management solutions that optimize business performance. OpenPages empowers the world’s largest companies by unifying governance, risk and compliance (GRC) activities across the enterprise and by incorporating risk management into their day-to-day business processes. Founded in 1996, the company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with international offices in Japan and the United Kingdom, and regional offices throughout North America.

For more information on OpenPages' suite of risk and compliance solutions, please click here or call us at 781.693.5999.