Author Archives: Morgan O'Rourke

About Morgan O'Rourke

Morgan O’Rourke is editor in chief of Risk Management magazine and director of publications for the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS).
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RIMS ERM Conference 2012 Comes to San Antonio

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Earlier this week, the second annual RIMS ERM Conference 2012 was held in San Antonio. With a theme of “Transforming Vision into Value,” attendees took in two days worth of educational sessions and discussions designed to provide them with the necessary expertise to develop and enhance enterprise risk management programs in their organizations.

Author and leadership expert Robert Stevenson set the tone in a keynote address that stressed the importance of looking at risk strategically as a means of ensuring perhaps the most valuable organizational commodity: its own survival. Stevenson pointed out that between 1985 and 2000, more than 90 companies have been pushed off the Fortune 500 and that the top 10 employers in 1960 have all completely changed today. What this demonstrated said Stevenson was that “future success is not inevitable because of past triumphs.” For risk managers, then, it is imperative that they remind their organizations that success is never final and that they need to pay attention to risk whether they like it or not. “If you don’t like paying attention to risk,” he said, “you will hate paying attention to extinction.”

So in order to avoid being blindsided, organizations need to adopt a wider perspective regarding risk, which naturally leads to ERM as a means to not only address threats, but to take advantage of opportunities.  To that end, subsequent sessions delved into a wide range of topics with experts offering practical advice on things like incorporating scenarios into strategic planning or using key risk indicators and root cause analysis to refine risk assessment. Presenters also shared their stories of how they were able to achieve ERM success in their organizations, giving attendees the opportunity to see theory in action and learn from the accomplishments of their risk management peers.

In an effort to recognize one of these success stories, the conference was highlighted by the presentation of the 2012 ERM Award of Distinction, which went to the YMCA of Greater Toronto for its sophisticated risk intelligence program. The program incorporated strategic risk tools and techniques including a collaborative project risk assessment that was aligned with the organization’s mission, vision and strategic plan objectives to produce an average 25% growth in monthly membership sales at one of its health, fitness and recreation centers, with phased replication and reach in other communities.

Sysco Corporation also received an honorable mention for successfully implementing an ERM program that helped transform the organization’s business culture from siloed businesses to a cohesive and interconnected network of companies focused on uncovering otherwise untapped opportunities.

“Enterprise risk management has become an increasingly important organizational competency that not only protects organizations from detrimental risks but has proven to help identify positive risks that can lead to profitable opportunities,” said Carol Fox, RIMS Director of Strategic and Enterprise Risk Practice. “The YMCA of Greater Toronto and Sysco Corporation are shining examples of how risk management can create value for an organization and their work is truly deserving of this honor.”

In all, the conference proved to a valuable learning experience for all who attended. The following are some of the images from San Antonio.

Robert Stevenson addresses the crowd.

 

Monica Merrifield, vice president, risk intelligence for the YMCA of Greater Toronto (second from left), received the ERM Award of Distinction.

 

The Solutions Showcase gathered ERM service providers.

 

Brian Thelen, general auditor and CRO, General Motors (left) and Joseph Ghammashi, senior vice president and CRO, CorporateOne FCU

 

Attendees gained valuable insight into ERM program development.

No More Kindles for Walmart

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In the March issue of Risk Management, I wrote an article that discussed, among other things, how brick-and-mortar retailers were struggling with the phenomenon of “showrooming,” where shoppers browse store shelves to examine items that they ultimately buy online from competitors like Amazon for a lower price. One strategy that Target was using to keep customers in their stores was to offer more exclusive items, such as clothing lines from famous fashion designers like Kirna Zabete, Jason Wu or Missoni. Then in May, Target upped the ante by announcing that it would no longer sell Amazon’s Kindle e-readers and tablets. Although the retailer didn’t offer much in the way of explanation, it was obvious that Target now considered Amazon to be a real competitor capable of disrupting the market and was going to treat it as such.

Yesterday the world’s largest retailer followed suit as Walmart announced that it was dropping Kindles as well. Although the Kindle has been around since 2007, it seems that the debut of the Kindle Fire tablets were the last straw. Unlike their predecessors, which were purely e-readers, the Fires are portable web browsers and media players that enable customers to more easily purchase many more items online, especially from Amazon.

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“The Kindle Fire is the Trojan horse,” said Andrew Rhomberg, the chief executive of Jellybooks, an e-book recommendation site. “It’s a shopping platform that covers so many more categories than e-books. It affects Walmart in a different way than the early Kindles and e-readers did.”

Basically by stocking Kindles, Walmart and Target were providing their customers with the keys to the online retail world, which could, in effect, wind up cannibalizing their own sales figures and brand strength. It’s probably wise not to be the instrument of your own destruction.

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Of course, whether or not this move will have any effect remains to be seen.

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After all, Walmart still sells iPads.

Supreme Court Upholds Health Care Law

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In one of the most closely-watched decisions in recent years, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, including the controversial individual mandate requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. SCOTUS Blog posted a succinct one paragraph summary of the decision:

The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.

The 5-4 decision was seen as a victory for the Obama Administration and will certainly become a key issue in the upcoming November election as Mitt Romney has already vowed to repeal the law should he win the presidency. In fact, this division was likely anticipated by Chief Justice John Roberts in his majority opinion:

We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.

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Roberts did conclude, however, with regard to the constitutionality of the individual mandate:

The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part. The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance.

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Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.

Regardless of its ultimate fate, the Affordable Care Act stands, much to the benefit of the some 30 million Americans without health insurance.

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To illustrate where these uninsured are concentrated, the Atlantic offered the following map.

 

The Apple/Samsung Smartphone Patent War Continues

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 Last December in Risk Management, we reported about the ongoing smartphone patent war being waged between Apple and Samsung that has seen each side seek injunctions throughout the world in an effort to stop their rival from selling products that they believe infringe on their patents. It’s a battle made all the more interesting by the fact that throughout all the legal manuevering, Apple remains Samsung’s biggest customer for smartphone parts.

Today the fight continues as many observers are anticipating that Apple will file for a restraining order banning Samsung from selling its hotly-anticipated Galaxy S III phone, which is expected to make its U.S. debut on June 21. The phone went on sale in Europe last month and in a CNET UK review it was dubbed the “Ferrari of Android phones” and was expected “to give the iPhone a good run for its money.” However, Apple claims that the Galaxy S III violates two of its software patents and wants to prevent its domestic launch from happening (especially since it would give Samsung the chance to gain some market share ahead of a new iPhone release). Samsung disagrees of course, and says that it will “demonstrate to the court that the Galaxy S III is innovative and distinctive.”

The decision to ban the Galaxy S III will need to be made by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who is already set to preside over another Apple vs. Samsung patent trial involving other Samsung phones and tablets expected to begin next month. Koh has said that if Apple seeks the new injunction, it will likely force her to push back the other trail date as she will be forced to reshuffle the other cases on her docket.

“I cannot be an Apple v. Samsung judge,” she said.

So it would seem that Apple’s next move will be based on what case it considers to be of higher priority–the longer-standing issue or the new threat? Either way, the smartphone wars show no sign of a cease-fire.