New Enterprise Risk Management Application From SAP Helps Companies Balance Business Opportunities With Risk Exposures

by SAP AG

SAP(R) GRC Risk Management Provides Integrated Framework to Proactively Manage Enterprise Risk in Context of Corporate Strategy and Business Performance

Continuing to expand its market-leading portfolio of solutions for governance, risk and compliance, SAP AG today introduced SAP(R) GRC Risk Management, a new business application that provides organizations with an integrated framework to automatically identify and proactively manage enterprise risk in the context of corporate strategy and business performance. Managing enterprise risk in a consistent, efficient, sustainable manner has become a critical boardroom priority as CFOs and chief risk officers (CROs) are facing unprecedented levels of business complexity, changing geopolitical threats, new regulations and legislation, and increasing shareholders demands. In response to these growing business challenges, SAP is delivering SAP GRC Risk Management to equip companies with the tools they require to help manage key risk exposures and vulnerabilities alongside the pursuit of new business opportunities, delivering more informed decision-making, improved business performance and competitive advantage. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE(R) '07, SAP's international customer conference, being held in Vienna, Austria, May 14 - 16.

According to a recent Deloitte report, titled "Disarming the Value Killers: A Risk Management Study," nearly half of the Fortune 1000 companies lost 20 percent of their stock value as a result of a significant business event, with half of those companies requiring greater than one year to regain lost value; more than one-fifth of those companies never recovered. SAP GRC Risk Management enables organizations to guide risk appetite and threshold planning, identify and analyze risks, balance the costs of risk avoidance with opportunities for growth and continuously monitor risk profiles over time. The new risk management application from SAP is a key component of the company's growing portfolio of solutions for governance, risk and compliance (SAP solutions for GRC), and supports SAP's multi-year plan to holistically address the increasingly strategic role of the CFO in driving business performance.

"Historically, risk management has often been a fragmented operation, particularly for large, distributed global businesses," wrote Michael Rasmussen, vice president, Forrester Research, in his February 2007 report "Business Drivers For Enterprise Risk Management." "Individual silos of risk management have emerged in enterprises worldwide as they react to mounting pressures, including dynamic and distributed business environments, changing geopolitical threats, and new legislation ... Today, executives are trying to establish a more consistent approach to risk management throughout the enterprise that will help aggregate better data for decision-making... A federated approach to measuring and managing risk is clearly beneficial for large enterprises."