HAVE YOU EVER HAD YOUR BIKE STOLEN?

Most of us lock our bikes when we leave them outside the store, for example. We do this to reduce the risk of them being stolen. Which lock we choose and how we lock them determines the level of risk we take, and this can depend, for example, on the area we are in and the time of day. If we don’t lock them at all, we’re taking an even bigger risk. In much the same way, we need to think about protecting our assets when we’re at work too. 

A risk can be described as including three parts; driver, event and impact that affect us from reaching our objective. In the case of the bike, it can be translated as someone needing or wanting a bike, they steal your bike, which means that you can’t get home as you’d planned. What you need to do is lower the risk of that happening to the level you decide is sufficient for you, by locking your bike in the way you believe is the best alternative at the time. Both the driver and impact of the same event can be different things. The impact of a bike theft is not just that you don’t get home as intended, it also entails an extra cost for you. It’s the same with us at Stena. For example, if we do not comply with laws and regulations, we may receive fines, but the biggest impact may be that our reputation and brand are damaged, and thus trust as well. This in turn can lead to our customers choosing one of our competitors instead. Low risks generally require fewer measures, while high risks often require us to work more with our risk management. If a risk can’t be reduced to an acceptable level, we can, for example, buy an insurance to further reduce the risk. Compare this with the bike shop salesperson who wants to sell you a bike insurance. Whether you buy it or not depends on your personal risk management and the risks you are ultimately willing to take. 

At Stena AB’s Corporate Governance function, we maintain a constant focus on reducing and managing risks to an acceptable level in collaboration with the companies. We also support the companies in reducing risks through ERM. ERM stands for Enterprise Risk Management and is intended to identify and manage Stena’s most critical risks that may prevent us from reaching our overall objectives. Risks must be managed at all levels and a well-functioning risk process means that we do not commit resources in the “wrong” areas but rather where risks actually affect us in reaching our objectives.

Examples of what we do at Stena to manage risks associated with our areas at Corporate Governance are the password requirements we set to reduce the risk of unauthorized persons accessing our information, and what is required to comply with certain laws and regulations. We also review which processes and controls we need to have in place to reduce the risk of fraud, for example, externally but also internally and this concerns both intentional and unintentional actions that can lead to damage. 

Ultimately, risk management is about protecting the company and its assets, including all our employees, to be able to reach what we want.