Many businesses recognise the challenge of having risk management procedures in place, yet five years ago, few would have foreseen the latest requirement on the horizon: digital risk management. As our worlds of BYOD, IoT and an always on, always connected society permeates every corner of the globe, the risk for any business has grown exponentially.

Indeed, Gartner predicts that by 2017, one third of large enterprises engaging in digital business activities will have adigital risk officer. Paul Proctor, VP and analyst at Gartner, says digital risk officers (DROs) will require a mix of business skills and acumen and enough technical knowledge make recommendations for addressing digital business risk.

Creating a role or responsibility for digital assets within an organisation is a smart approach. But how does one individual, or perhaps a team, monitor these assets across a multinational organisation?

Businesses need to consider the variety of regulations across different regions; for example, the forthcoming amends to the data protection act, the assessment of technological risk of systems used to manage digital engagement, or even the representation of a brand. All of these and more require regular assessment and monitoring so that if or when a DRO or risk management team is questioned about the organisation’s digital assets they can easily report back to the regulatory body or auditors, demonstrating that the organisation complies appropriately.

The other major benefit a DRO role brings to an organisation is the ability to drive value from digital asset spend. Multinationals, in particular, will often have regions producing duplicate content. With an accurate understanding of the global digital estate, the DRO will enable decisions based upon not only the risk profile of assets but also the value they deliver. This will avoid unnecessary spend where value may be sub-optimal or where assets have become stale due to a lack of updates.

The accurate understanding of the entire digital estate through effective data capture and governance will then provide insights for better and more impactful decisions but also create savings and drive savvier purchasing decisions., ultimately ensuring the DRO role pays for itself.

So while the predictions of the new DRO role abound, what can businesses who’ve not yet made the hire do now?

• Empower your knowledge base: The majority of businesses are blessed with a group of knowledgeable employees (or consultants) such as lawyers, risk officers and senior executives. When combined, these individuals can and should provide a cohesive view of the organisation’s digital assets and legislative requirements in each location.
• Think global, act local: By auditing the businesses across every location and recording the different digital assets produced and stored, the risk management team can start to gain a clear view of any challenges or areas for concern as well as flagging future challenges in a reliable risk management system.
• Set realistic expectations: Regulatory and legislative organisations will expect businesses to recognise the importance of their digital assets. The acknowledgement that digital risk management is still in its infancy means that you could be ahead of the curve.
• Be proactive: Proactively prevent issues, don’t wait for the proverbial to hit the fan. By having a robust risk management policy in place you’ll be able to detect, report and address issues that are important. After all, prevention is better than having to continually firefight problems.

By creating an effective digital asset data collection process in your business, you’ll be able to profile the risk and value of assets and produce benchmarks to assist in the ongoing management of your portfolio, and be able to assess the business case for new ones.