Q. Why should I care about all this talk about convergence?
A. In today’s complex global economy, CEOs have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to ensure that a unified risk management process is established. Risk is oblivious to organizational boundaries and transcends the organization both internally and externally. Critical business processes that were traditionally controlled internally are commonly now reliant on third party suppliers that may be in some far flung corner of the globe. A single point of accountability and leadership responsible for assessing, monitoring and recommending mitigation for the entire portfolio of risks the business enterprise faces is vital to the survivability of the entire entity. The security executive is the natural strategic leader for this effort, since they normally head the effort to collect and analyze intelligence on the broad range of risks the corporation faces globally and commonly are responsible for oversight of business continuity planning and crisis management.
While the term convergence has been utilized primarily in the context of merging the narrow bands of physical security and information systems security, it must go much further than that. Without accountability being truly converged, the security executive is left blinded to the totality of the broad issues that potentially impact the viability of the entire business enterprise. Convergence must be redefined to move beyond including these narrow bands into ensuring that all interdependent elements of the business assurance program are integrated. The business assurance program must address the safeguarding of all business enterprise processes, assets, resources and people wherever they are situated around the world. Failure to effectively address business assurance through a unified risk management process results in creating unacceptable levels of legal and regulatory exposure for the business enterprise.
Answer provided by Lynn Mattice, Security Executive Council’s Chairman of the Board of Advisors
