The subject of your essay should be broadly related to risk management including governance, risk in strategy, risk modelling, risk metrics, or risk as a general subject. Potential subjects include regulation, corporations, global strategy and financial institutions.
This template is intended to help you develop your essay. It is suitable for a case study of either an organisation or an industry/sector. Whether you use it is entirely optional; it isn’t part of the submission for the Risk Prize. If you have a different style of essay in mind, that’s great – “follow your nose”!
This template will speak to an organisation or industry/sector, addressing questions such as:
- How does it recognise risk and uncertainty?
- How does it incorporate macro-level risk analysis into its management processes (including consideration of stakeholders, strategic decisions and governance)?
- How does it compare to either industry peers or other sectors?
- How are these aspects changing over time?
You are encouraged to make use of your own experience, experience from practitioners or documents from organisation that you may paraphrase or quote, and the broad spectrum of information in any form that can be referenced: hard copy, web-based, news and analysis, social media etc. We suggest using the Harvard Referencing System which is well documented on the web.
Developing your essay
For development of your essay, a starting point is to fill in details below wherever text in bold appears:
Risk Management for: company or sector
Essay plan (200 words max – if you can express this as a “story” in a few bullet points, then your subsequent job will be easier: tell and explain your story through evidence.)
- What attracts you to this firm/sector?
- Highlight the issue or problem
- Describe the approach to solving it
- Give a clear take-away/implications for management
Data sources
Include information on data sources as per below:
- Web: relevant docs on company website, news articles
- If focus is a single firm: name of comparator firm(s) (in same or other sector)
- If focus is a sector: name of specific firms you might use as illustrations
- Name of comparator sector(s)
- Industry bodies: name of industry bodies, websites, and what kind of information you hope to find
- Practitioners you will consult: names, employers, job titles, relevant areas of expertise
- Personal experience: past employer(s), job title(s), relevant areas of expertise
- Practitioner papers and books: specific sources beyond the course references