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Business resilience and risk management for CPAs

Do you have the right skills to manage uncertainty and reduce risk for your organization?

Risk can take many forms, and the ability to effectively manage uncertainty and reduce risk is an increasingly important skill for CPAs. Risk management directly contributes to an organization’s performance and long-term sustainability by providing a valuable framework to support strategic decision-making about everything from capital markets to pricing and product launches.

BUILDING RESILIENCE AND REDUCING RISK

Thousands of consumer products are launched each year and more than half fail. Often, what separates products and services that succeed from those that do not is a thoughtful and calculated approach. To increase accuracy in forecasting and streamline financial processes, some of the top factors to consider are:

  • how to scale up if the product takes off very quickly
  • determining the correct metrics for evaluating performance
  • when to delay or accelerate operations to align with the market
  • what kind of research, analysis and financial modeling are required
  • not overlooking the basics: budgeting, pricing, target audience, competitive advantage, product differentiation

CPAs are well-equipped to lead and guide business resilience. By conducting risk and sensitivity analysis, you can help your clients or organization create the right financial models to effectively identify, measure and manage uncertainty.

SUCCESS AND STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING

As a professional accountant, you understand the challenges that come with strategic decision-making in fast-paced environments, often based on incomplete information or rapidly changing conditions. One of the most important skills you can offer is strong professional judgement. It’s a core component of both technical and enabling competencies for CPAs.

CPA Canada can help you reduce uncertainty – catering to the problem, product or challenge at hand – with a variety of important resources. When you enhance your skills in strategic decision-making, you will be able to more confidently advise your business on risk management and mitigation.

According to the Harvard Business Review, “It’s impossible to eliminate risk from strategic decision-making, but it is possible for companies to significantly improve their chances of success by expanding their tool kit of decision support tools and understanding which tools work best for which decisions.”

Learn more about how you can manage uncertainty and reduce risk for your organization in our upcoming professional development opportunity:

Quantifying Uncertainty: How to Measure Common Business Decisions
Online learning – virtual classroom | CPD: 3 hours
September 29, 2017 | Noon to 2 p.m. EST

Curious about related topics like cybersecurity, financial planning and forecasting? We're offering four additional virtual classrooms this summer.