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2021 Innovation Awards: ​​ERM Crowdsourcing Assessment

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2021 Innovation Awards

Origami Risk
ERM Crowdsourcing Assessment

Aiming to get past the common practice of relying on a single person within a business department or function to assess specific risks, Origami Risk LLC was inspired by an internet collaboration technique — crowdsourcing.

Risk managers traditionally have sought support from executives across their operations to identify and assess risks within their functions. It can be a time-consuming process and might not be as thorough as it should be, said Joshua Newsum, Phoenix-based GRC solution architect with Origami.

A more efficient way to gain a full view of risk across business areas would be to ask multiple individuals in a department or function to participate in risk assessments, Mr. Newsum said. After analyzing their input, risk managers would be able to make better-informed decisions regarding mitigation and management of risks, he said.

And that’s why Chicago-based Origami developed its ERM Crowdsourcing Assessment solution, a winner of a 2021 Business Insurance Innovation Award.

Origami developed the tool, which is offered as part of its enterprise risk management suite, with input from risk managers involved in large-scale enterprise risk initiatives. It automates the collection of risk assessment scores from multiple individuals, replacing more traditional assessment methods that can be cumbersome and take a lot of resources to conduct, Mr. Newsum explained.

Risk managers want to engage their entire business when considering how to protect their organizations, he said. They need feedback from many individuals, he said, “and this is why we needed this solution.”

Risk managers no longer need to consider that a single person owns a particular risk and their opinion of it is the only feedback that matters, Mr. Newsum said. Instead, using the crowdsourcing assessment tool, they can survey multiple employees within a single department, at different business units or in various locations to get their opinions on the risk.

The tool requires no training for “assessors” identified by the risk manager to receive a questionnaire by email, Mr. Newsum said. The assessor is asked to score a risk according to such factors as its potential impact on the organization and the likelihood of a loss. 

The solution represents a shift away from a “fear of risk,” Mr. Newsum said, by gathering “very straightforward opinions and feedback on risks so that we can take proper action within the organization and align that to strategy. That’s really the underlying reason why we built a feature like this.” 

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