Early last year, i did a blog entry looking at the views Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Professor Yossi Sheffi. He argued that many companies struggle with risk management because it's too fragmented, and ultimately, no-one is held responsible.

Adrian Slywotzky and Karl Weber elaborate on this point in their piece How To Help Your Company Focus on the New World of Risk in Fast Company.

Their piece identifies seven types of risk in the new world of strategic threats. They are:

1. Project risk (when your next big initiative fails).

2.customer risk (when customers abandon you).

3. transition risk (when unexpected changes in technology or business design undermine your company)

4. unique competitor risk (when a giant likes Wal-Mart rides over your industry).

5. brand risk (when your brand becomes irrelevant or unappealing).

6. industry risk (when your industry becomes a no-profit zone).

7.stagnation risk (when growth grinds to a halt).

The other thing, they say, is to drill this right through the organization and dealing with issues like confidentiality, secrecy and silos. Easier said than done because, as they say, a lot of the structures and systems are built around that:

"Silo structures impede broad-based risk management in other ways. Most companies incentivize managers based largely or even entirely on departmental or division performance. And job promotions, of course, are driven mainly by the perceived success of a manager's own group. This is logical and to a degree unavoidable, but the sense of inter-departmental competition it sets up inevitably reduces the willingness of managers to share information and ideas. The result isn't always data hoarding, but the energy that managers apply to cross-fertilization of knowledge is, at least, drastically diminished.

"Overcoming these common cultural constraints takes time as well as plenty of deliberate, conscious effort. As your company's designated expert on risk, you have the leverage to play the decisive role. Start by getting your top executives' buy-in to the importance of the new view of strategic risk. Once they hear the company's leaders talking openly about the threats you may face, employees further down the line will realize they have permission to confront the same issues honestly. This will go a long way toward breaking down the cultural taboos that formerly silenced such discussion."