Sarbanes-Oxley Ongoing Compliance Guide: Key Processes and Summary Checklists

Implementing ERM

A risk management framework should go beyond traditional financial accounting controls and procedures to help an organization achieve its objectives through the proactive management of business risks. Goals of the framework should include the following:

Checklist: Goals of the Risk Management Framework

	Provide the board and senior management team with a portfolio view of risk (i.e., business-unit level and entity level) to gain an understanding of how such risks are being managed.
	Give business areas the ability to proactively identify, assess, and report on the control level of their risks within the context of the company’s overall business objectives.
	Support continuous process improvement and enhance shareholder value.
	Emphasize how individual risks interrelate, and reinforce the importance people play in the mitigation of risk.

A team of representatives from key areas of the company should be assembled to assist in establishing a formal ERM framework. This team, or a portion of it, may continue as part of a risk management organization after the initial critical framework ...