All Articles

Climbing the ERM Tree

Enterprise risk management (ERM) can take many forms. Understanding its history and complexity can help risk managers create better programs.

US Consultant Helps IDFC in Weighing Investments, Risk

IDFC PE has $1.3 billion (Rs5,928 crore) under management and is present in critical sectors such as power and ports.

ASEAN's Growing Hunger for Energy

ASEAN economies appear to have emerged from the global recession more quickly than expected. If favorable conditions continue to prevail, the region can grow at a healthy rate going forward.

Creating a Culture of Safety

"Every energy company pays heed to safety. However, the real dividends come when safety is part of corporate culture." A senior international consultant shows how.

The Emerging US Climate Change Framework

As the proposed greenhouse gas legislation wends its way through Congress, we continue to be impressed by the fact that few of the uncertainties over the ultimate shape and impact of the legislation have been resolved.

The Upside of Risk

Enterprise risk management (ERM) has always had an upside component because risk itself has an upside. By exploring the upside of risk, practitioners can add measurable value to their organizations' bottom lines.

Capitalizing on the Crisis: Strategic Decision-Making in an Uncertain Economy

Astute business leaders realize that the current environment will open significant opportunities for their companies to benefit from the dislocations across industries. To identify and capitalize on these opportunities in the face of significant uncertainty about the length and depth of the current crisis, decision-makers should take an integrated approach to strategy and risk management.

Value-driven ERM: Managing Risk in Real-Economy Companies

For non-financial companies in the real economy, the need for effective enterprise risk management has become more urgent than ever. In the face of worldwide economic downturn, turbulent markets, and pressure from regulators and rating agencies, boards are demanding it, and many CEOs are searching for the right model.

Will Your Environmental Compliance Decisions Meet Today's Challenges?

Recent regulatory and political developments will undoubtedly influence the future environmental compliance and generation asset portfolio choices and call into question legacy decisions. All power companies are undertaking a fundamental review of their generation or supply portfolio in light of the major sources of today's environmental uncertainty. The preservation of billions of dollars of shareholder value are at stake.

Make Better Decisions

We know that individuals can be trained to make better decisions, but as greater authority is moved into the hands of frontline managers, developing a broadly based decision competency is becoming more important. Some corporations are taking steps to enhance organizational decision competence. Learn how Chevron and other companies developed programs for improving decision quality and how they got started.

Riding the Currents and Avoiding the Rocks

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 presents significant investment opportunities for participants in the electricity and gas industry, but also introduces major uncertainties.

How SmithKline Beecham Makes Better Resource-Allocation Decisions

Shrinking R&D budgets and shorter product life cycles mean investment dollars must be invested with precision if companies are going to stay on the cutting edge in their industries. For a pharmaceuticals company like SmithKline Beecham, the problem is this: How do you make good decisions in a high-risk, technically complex business when the information you need to make those decisions comes largely from the project champions who are competing against one another for resources?

Syncrude: A Transformation Success Story

Syncrude Canada Ltd.'s management committee was composed of representatives from separate corporate owners. Some wanted to grow the business, others wanted to harvest it. It was at this point that the company embarked on an ambitious program to unblock the strategic agenda and extract the value that lay dormant in the business.

Business Forecasting: Lessons from the Accounting Malaise

The charges are familiar: lack of transparency and credibility, distortion of numbers in response to short-term pressures, and narrow agendas, even betrayal of the professional duties and mission. No, it’s not corporate accounting. These are the ills of business forecasting, the “other” accounting.

Airline Hedging Strategies: The Shareholder Value Perspective

Airlines, particularly those in the United States, continue to suffer from high jet fuel prices. Hedging is often touted as the solution to this problem, but it can be a double-edged sword for those who are not clear about why they are doing it.

How to Uncover Hidden Shareholder Value

If your company isn't managing value as a system, it may be leaving money on the table.

Bringing Quality to Board Decisions

Corporate boards have been noted for bad decision-making of late, but the authors point out that it need not be that way. Their research finds that most boards either make decisions too late (acquiescing to a choice management has already made) or too soon (competing with the CEO). There is a third way.

Deal Evaluation: 10 Failure Modes

The authors outline 10 common evaluation mistakes observed during the run-up of the NASDAQ. These errors fall into three groups: failure to anticipate market changes; financial evaluation failures; and failure to execute after the investment is made.

Five Habits of Highly Strategic Thinkers

What do Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr., and W. Edwards Deming have in common? All these people have what the authors call strategic perspective – the ability to see the "big picture" and the important issues it encompasses.

Is the R&D Message Hitting a Brick Wall?

Under pressure from investors, specialty chemical companies are constantly searching for ways of creating shareholder value.