Ethos Issue 7, Jan 2010

Enterprise Risk Management:
Strengthening Singapore’s Advantage
Ang Hak Seng

Good ERM measures can themselves become opportunities. For example, Singapore’s approach to managing its risks and vulnerabilities with respect to water supply has led to its being recognised as a world leader in water management and technology.

MAKING THE MOST OF ERM: GUIDING PRINCIPLES
In order to fully exploit the value proposition of ERM as a unifying platform for strategic thinking, planning and advantage, three guiding principles are proposed:

1. Develop the common language of ERM
Effective dialogue is founded on a common language. Although risk management is a mature concept, ERM has taken on several different manifestations. To effectively work across ministries and departments, we need to decide on a common language and a unified process. A forthcoming manual created by the ERM workgroup will provide the initial basis for just such a common language for the Singapore Public Service.

2. Link ERM with resource planning and allocation and decide trade-offs at the highest levels
In every resource planning and allocation exercise, ERM should feature as a key framework in management decisionmaking. This will also link background thinking and considerations to actual policy and planning, in a coherent manner that facilitates future thinking and review.

3. Implement ERM through WOG groups, but these groups should change periodically
Across ministries and departments, there is no natural platform best suited to considering the cross-cutting issues raised by risk scanning or assessment. Therefore, ERM groups need to be deliberately formed for this task. Given the diversity of issues and players, there is no one correct way to organise these groups. Nonetheless, to facilitate work, some logical groupings will need to be established. However, these groupings should not be permanent, to avoid hardening of perspectives or bureaucratic constraints. One possible option could be a central Risk Office to coordinate efforts of different groups and ensure alignment with strategic WOG objectives.

CONCLUSION
The ability of ERM to raise issues that cut across organisational boundaries and unify by offering a common platform for analysis and discussion makes it a very useful framework for the WOG strategic planning process, across different levels of organisation and layers of uncertainty. ERM also focuses attention on possible turbulent events: offering a powerful strategic edge to any country that has to navigate an ever more unpredictable and complex world. Singapore, with a nimble, integrated and able Government, can seize this initiative to position itself as a leading country at the global forefront of coping with Turbulence.

Senior Assistant Commissioner Ang Hak Seng joined the Singapore Police Force in 1986 and has assumed leadership positions in units involved in operations, intelligence and frontline policing. He is the current Senior Director of Planning and Development and Director of International Cooperation. Senior Assistant Commissioner Ang holds a M.Sc (MOT) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University. He is also a chartered accountant by training. He is leading a Civil Service project team commissioned by the Organisational Excellence Committee (OEC) on enterprise risk management. The views expressed in this article are his own.

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