How to Successfully Manage Your Organization's IT Risks

When implement something in your information technology strategy, you accept some level of risk. Comprehending and managing this risk is vital to your organization's success. Below we'll review how to manage your IT risks and what your options are.

Comprehending IT Risks

Your risk management is a crucial balance to strike - not only will it permit you to prepare for potential problems preemptively, you can also take the opportunity to reconsider your plans if the impending risks are greater than you’re comfortable with. If adopting a solution ultimately reduces your productivity or overall success, it can hardly be considered a solution.

This is precisely why risk management is an imperative process for any company that plans to be successful.

How to Successfully Manage Your IT Risks

Like any business process, risk management has at least a few steps that should be followed in order for an optimal outcome. These steps can be summarized with the acronym PEARS: Predict, Evaluate, Arrange, React, and Scrutinize.

Predict

In order to properly prepare for one of your risks, you must see it coming. Commit some time to consider which risks are the most probable, and at what point the associated problems are likely to arise.

Evaluate

Once you have narrowed down your risks to the most probable, you should estimate the impact each would have. Are they potentially devastating, or would they result in slight annoyances?

Arrange

With these impacts in mind, you need to order your risks in order of their severity (and resultantly, their priority) so you can address the most imperative ones first.  At this point, you can construct a strategy to approach them, which we’ll review in more depth later.

React

At this point, you are prepared for your hypothetical risks to become reality. If they do, you need to stick to the plan you have made thus far. There are a few different ways that you can approach this:

• Avoidance - You could simply decide to take the steps necessary to avoid the risk, with little regard to the costs of doing so. While applying safeguards is usually an effective way of avoiding a given risk, it is usually resource-intensive to rely on as your only method of risk management.
  
  
• Reduction - Similar to avoidance, this method entails the use of your resources to avoid risk. However, instead of terminating the risks entirely, this approach is geared more towards making risks more easily managed and less impactful.
  
  
• Transference - You may have the option to shift the risk to an area that can better handle it or finds it less risky. This might be another department in your organization, or a solutions provider who is more experienced in handling such matters.
  
  
• Acceptance - This strategy relies on you to have the foresight to accept that risks are possible. The idea here is to not be caught by surprise when a risk materializes so that you can better handle it in the moment.

Scrutinize

After your particular risk has passed, you should evaluate how well your preparations did in reducing the resulting impacts. Were your preparations effective, and how could they be improved for the next time?

Macro Systems Can Help with Your IT Risks

As a managed service provider, we’ve had a lot of experience with IT risks and mitigating them. We can help you identify your risks and determine the best ways to address them. Combining the processes described above with our expertise, Macro Systems will find the solution that suits your particular business needs.

Give us a call at 703-359-9211 for more information.