加拿大留学termpaper指导：风险管理的原则和卓有成效的管理方法

前言——Introduction

An organisations success is dependable on both internal and external stakeholders; however internal stakeholders are believed to be increasingly more important. Internal stakeholders include stakeholders such as managers, employees and directors of the organisation. Many businesses today are facing huge threats such as fierce competition, pressure from economy and customers are demanding good quality products and services. Employees of an organisation are also demanding more from their workplace which adds extra pressure on managing directors, for example employees look for higher pay rises, job security and career progression. Managing directors must use different techniques in order to manage risks; this paper will discuss different types of methods which managing directors should use to manage the risks which they are facing. Furthermore the paper will also discuss how two large organisations Enron and WorldCom collapsed because they failed to manage their risks. The paper will also include some of the entrepreneurial leadership characteristics and qualities that a managing director should have. It will further discuss the duties and responsibilities of the managing directors and suggestions on how they can become effective and responsible.

 

安然公司——Enron

 

Is a large energy company which was founded by Omaha Nebraska, it is located in United States Houston Texas. The company had huge success from the year 2000 onwards where they had a workforce of 22,000 employees and had revenues of $101 billion. However there was a dramatic change in 2001, as Enron faced acquisitions of accounting fraud, which the press labelled as Enron scandal. This was a huge success to America and the rest of the world as Enron had higher expectations from the public as it was named the America’s most innovative company for 6 years. This lead to one of the largest energy companies in America to file for bankruptcy, nevertheless Enron had emerged from bankruptcy in 2004, later in 2006 Enron had sold Prisma energy international and is due to remain business to Ashmore energy international ltd. Enron’s directors had played a huge role in recovering Enron from bankruptcy as they paid very significant sums of money personally. Finally in 2004 Enron had established itself with a new name known as Enron creditors recovery corp. Enron’s new core mission was to “reorganize and liquidate certain operations and assets of the "pre-bankruptcy" Enron for the benefit of its creditors”.

 

世通公司——WorldCom

 

Is an American Telecoms company which was built from scratch; it was founded in the year 1983 by a group of Mississippi businessmen who formed Long distance discount services (LDDS). The companies prime objective was to become a long distance re seller competing with AT&T’s long distance service by leasing a rival long distance network and selling on call time, mostly to business customers. Later in 1985 Bernie Ebbers had to become the new CEO of the company quickly bringing in many changes such as merging with other like minded businesses. In 1989 the business had taken over long distance service provider Advantage. Ebbers was a very successful CEO because he managed to secure 60 separate acquisitions or mergers in the first 15 years. Disaster had struck the company in July 2001 when WorldCom had declared bankruptcy, which was believed to be the largest in filing of bankruptcy in the United States. Later WorldCom had changed its name to MCI in the year 2003, and had re located to Dulles, Virginia in 2003. Later in 2004 WorldCom had emerged from Bankruptcy with approximately $5million in debt and $6billion in cash; however majority of the cash was used to pay various claims and settlements. WorldCom had many creditors to pay off these creditors included former employees. On March 2005 Bernard Ebbers was found guilty of all charges and convicted of fraud conspiracy and filing false documents with regulators, a 5 year sentenced was given to Bernard Ebbers.

 

Managing risk is a crucial step which large organisations such as Enron and WorldCom should take; there are different ways in which an organisation can manage a risk. The four most common ways in which a company should manage risks are mentioned below:

 

企业应何管理风险的四种方法——Four ways how a business should manage risk are as follows:

 

Accept it

 

Transfer it

 

Reduce it

 

Eliminate it

 

When an organisation identifies a risk they must act quickly and accept this risk, because if they ignore it they may face the penalty. Transferring a risk to an opportunity is the next step which Enron and WorldCom should take. An example of transferring a risk is if Enron and WorldCom have a risk of losing their staff they should transfer this risk by offering their staff job security by giving guarantees they will be offered higher wages, Enron and WorldCom could also get their employees more involved in the companies missions and share the risks which they are facing so that the dedicated employees can also play a part in transferring the risk.

 

How does a business manage risk? Have a well planned business plan, SMART objectives, training and development, identify threats and assess them for example find methods and techniques on how to reduce them. Managing directors need to practise decision making, they also need to be dynamic and responsive of change, and be capable of continual improvement and enhancement.

 

Reducing a risk is the third step which WorldCom and Enron should take, there are many ways which a company can reduce a risk which are they should look for creative and innovative solutions which can be made by entrepreneurial managing directors. By reducing a risk a company can benefit in many ways such as they will be able to create time and save money. To reduce risk a business must defuse three important factors which are threats, vulnerabilities and impact. A threat is known as a technological, natural, or man made cause of harm to an information asset. A threat which exploits a vulnerability resulting in the partial or total loss of one or more business assets constitutes business impact.

 

Finally the final step which Enron and WorldCom must take is to eliminate the risk from their companies. By being risk free both companies can increase their sales and profits. Another advantage of eliminating their risks is that they will build up their reputation, and this will attract employees and external customers, suppliers and shareholders, because if these stakeholders see that the company is facing no risks or threats it will attract huge investors to invest in the company and experienced employees will stay with the company rather then leave their jobs. However to eliminate a risk companies must invest huge amounts of money and it is very important companies correctly budget their investments if they are to clear their debts.

 

Another approach which is highly recommended to managing directors of Enron and WorldCom is risk management. Risk management is about identifying a risk, assessing the impact on the business if an incident happens and finally making the right financial decision.

 

风险管理——Risk management:

 

methodically identifying the risks surrounding your business activities

 

assessing the likelihood of an event occurring

 

understanding how to respond to these events

 

putting systems in place to deal with the consequences

 

monitoring the effectiveness of your risk management approaches and controls

 

As a result, the process of risk management:

 

improves decision-making, planning and prioritisation

 

helps you allocate capital and resources more efficiently

 

allows you to anticipate what may go wrong, minimising the amount of fire-fighting you have to do or, in a worst-case scenario, preventing a disaster or serious financial loss

 

significantly improves the probability that you will deliver your business plan on time and to budget

 

 

(Figure 1 is in reference with Internet document website [1] )

 

R.Pozzi, S (2009) suggests that in today’s economy it is more crucial for businesses to enhance their results through improved risk management practises. There are different types of risk management tools which are available for managing directors to use some of them are mentioned below. In today’s centaury more and more managing directors are turning to technology, some of the technology which organisations are investing in are dashboard views this will enable a managing director to identify key information and schedule reports. Split security that can check access to loss information by user so that managing directors can see the loss data for their organisation. Scores of selection criteria that allows users to create customised reports.

 

Furthermore a business can also do market research in order to help manage the risks. This is another effective control which Enron and WorldCom could have used to manage their risks and decrease their chances of being in a financial risk. Risks can also be identified by managing directors by using qualitative or quantitative methods. Quantitative methods are techniques which use dollar amounts to provide a financially based risk value. And a qualitative method is when a business will use scoring methods and the experience of employees and consultants to arrive at a risk score.

 

Entrepreneurial characteristics that board of directors should have which will help them to control and manage risks are that: a managing director should be innovative and creative as this will help them to keep ahead of risks such as fierce competition. They should also be enthusiastic and pro active and hardworking this will reduce operation risks because if managing directors have these characteristics the business will operate smoothly and they will also be showing a good example to the employees who will be encouraged to work harder if they have managing directors with the qualities mentioned above.

 

Management, roles of leadership e.g. leadership styles can have an effect on the success of a business. There are different types of leadership styles which managing directors are able to use them are which are as follows: Autocratic is when a managing director will make decisions without reference to anyone else. A high degree of need is on the managing director. The disadvantages of this leadership style are that it can create de-motivation and alienation of staff. Another disadvantage which this leadership style has is that it is only valuable in certain parts of the business where decisions need to be made quickly. Another type of leadership style which Enron and WorldCom are able to use is Democratic, which is suppose to encourage decision making from different perspectives, there are two main ways which a managing director will make decisions they are consultative, which is when a manager will be in a process of consultation with his/her employees and the second type of decision making is persuasive leader will act upon decisions and will persuade others that the decisions are correct. The advantages of democratic leadership are that workers have a sense of ownership, it improves the sharing of ideas; however the disadvantage of this leadership style is that it can delay decision making.

 

There are also other leadership styles which managing directors can benefit from which is paternalistic, this is a leadership style whereby the leader will take a father role. This type of leader will make vital decisions however will also consult his decisions to his children also known as employees. The main objective of this leader is to build support for the staff ensuring that they are fully satisfied.

 

“管理是把事情做对，领导是做正确的事”——“Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things”

 

(Warren Bennis and Peter Drucker)

 

A managing director’s main duties and responsibilities are to ensure the smooth running of the business. It is very important that the managing directors operate the business in professional and sensible manor. A very important duty of a manager is to look after the staff of the organisation because if the staffs are not looked after they will not fully commit to the companies goals and objectives. Handy (1993) suggests that there are certain key variables which a manager has to grapple with they are as follows, the goals of an organisation, works and structures and systems and procedures. The author also stresses that these variables cannot be dealt with separation but with constraints of an environment in which the author views three crucial components which are as follows the goals of an organisation, the technology available, and the culture of the organisation which includes the values and beliefs.

 

Managing directors need to manage change and be prepared for the change in environment and economy. According to Cole, G.A (2003), organisations tend to change according to what they want to achieve and how. Majority of organisations will change depending on external circumstances. There are also some managing directors who want to change because of their entrepreneurial spirit and these managers are hungry for a new challenge and opportunities. Managing directors also need to be very flexible and pro active if they are to survive in the market.

 

There are two types of well known changes which are planned change and emergent change. A planned change is described as moving an organisation from stable state to another. The benefits of planned change are as follows finite objectives, must be self sustaining and are a collaborative process. The disadvantages of this change are that it assumes environmental stability, ignores power and politics, too reliant on managers, it is a one best way approach and finally it has limited applicability. Emergent change is believe to be more open ended, more under predictable, cannot be pre planned and is more of a learning process. According to Pettigrew (1997) (pg, 285) “Successful change is less dependent on detailed plans and projections than on reaching an understanding of the complexity of the issues concerned and identifying the range of available options”. The author is trying to stress that in an emergent change the managing directors must experiment, adapt and take risks if they are to manage change according to emergent change. There are many disadvantages of emergent change which are that it is believed to be over focussed on power and politics, it ignores managerial resistance and finally ignores choice. Finally to summarise change in organisations managing directors will have different approaches to change and there are three ways in which an organisation can exercise change which are as follows, what to change, how to change it, and when to change it.

 

Another way in which managing directors can manage risks in their organisations is to create trust in their organisation. Gladis (2009) suggests that an organisation should take the following steps if they are to create trust in their organisations. Admitting trust as soon as possible, apologizing, preparing for the future, promising all stakeholders that you will take action to repair the damage and finally asking for forgiveness.

 

结论——Conclusion
 

In conclusion the following paper has discussed some of the main topics regarding risk management. In order for organisations such as Enron and WorldCom to succeed their managing directors must be able to accept risk, transfer it into new opportunities which will open doors for the future and they must also reduce the risk which will decrease the chances of failure and loss. Finally these two large companies should also defuse the risk permanently by using risk management tools. Managing directors should invest in technology which will increase the chances of managing risk more effectively. There are certain entrepreneurial characteristics which a managing director should have such as being innovative, creative, hard working, and enthusiastic these characteristics which help a leader to become more successful in running a risk free organisation. Leadership styles are important and a managing director should use the appropriate style which will benefit them selves as well as the organisation it self. Change is also another important factor Enron and WorldCom should decide which change method is suitable for those two most common changes are planned change and emergent change. Building trust is also very crucial and managing directors must fully concentrate on creating trust if they are to succeed and to manage risks.