Editor’s note: Tim Lozier will be a guest on Quality Digest Live this Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, at 11 a.m. Pacific

During the past few years, risk management continues to be a topic of interest. There are plenty of benchmarking trends that point to risk. We see it in enterprise strategic initiatives. We see it being incorporated into standards and regulations. And yet, I think that for many, the concept of risk remains an enigmatic and elusive concept.

In many companies leaders are so concerned with day-to-day operational issues, that conducting risk assessment and management, although strategically significant, is perceived to be something that will be done way off in the future. This is far from the reality—in fact many companies are already addressing risk in one way or another, but don’t know it.

Risk management is everywhere, and is not some lofty strategic element that is limited to top-floor executives making enterprisewide decisions. Risk management is like any other tool in the compliance process—it is another method for streamlining your business. The developers of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) management standards such as ISO 9001 have seen this for many years, and are looking to push risk management elements into several standards.

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