Risk Management v4.0! …how the Fourth Industrial Revolution is expected to shape the future Risk Management Discipline

By now most people have heard that we are living in an age which is being commonly referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The term was introduced by the World Economic Forum to try and explain how rapidly emerging technologies are collectively re-shaping our global consciousness, our social behaviours, our preferred politics, the cities we will live in, our places of work, our management practices and even our future careers.

Consider how the telephone (1876) took almost 70 years to attract 100 million customers globally, whereas Facebook (2004) achieved that many users in five years and Candy Crush (2012) in only three. The fact is our technology enabled world is evolving so rapidly that during a future Industry v4.0 we should expect to see start-up organisations emerge that can attract a 100 million customers in less than a year and a billion customers within three.

Clearly, when an industry’s leading players can come under significant competitive threat in less than a year by organisations and products that don’t even yet exist, the impacts are certain to be highly disruptive. This in turn begs the natural question; what risk management knowledge, skills, methods and tools will be required in a complex, system driven working world experiencing ever increasing frequencies of disruptive change?

More to the point, what does a future Risk Management Version 4.0 look like?

About The Speakers

Warren Black

Warren Black

Principal, Complexus

Throughout his career, Warren has accrued deep expertise in managing risks within complex operating & delivery environments. Warren has held Senior Advisory roles at both Deloitte and Marsh Risk Consulting and is also arguably one of only a handful a Risk Professionals who has built a full ‘end-to-end’ risk management framework for an organisation of over $25 billion (BG QCLNG). Also, as a demonstration of his commitment to his art, Warren is currently engaged in PhD Research whereby he is investigating how the accepted principles of the “complexity sciences” and "complex systems thinking" might provide more effective risk management solutions for environments which are highly complex, dynamic & uncertain. In this regard, Warren is of the belief that the broader complexity sciences provide a new lens upon which to help risk management transition into the future.