There are numerous strategic risk issues that might keep a chief risk officer or chief executive officer awake at night. Particularly since the financial meltdown, many are asking themselves (and anyone who will listen), “Do we need to do more in risk management?”

Evaluating your program is an intense process, but you can start with some basic information. These questions, taken from The new risk era: Capturing the whole picture, are a wonderful exercise to help you evaluate your risk management strategy. Take a moment to honestly gauge your organization’s efforts surrounding risk management.

If you can answer “No” to any of the following questions, your organization can benefit from establishing a formal enterprise risk management approach or reevaluating its existing framework:

• Are your risk and compliance requirements properly integrated with your business priorities?
• Is your risk management process aligned with your strategic decision-making process and existing performance measures?
• Is your risk framework properly calibrated to recent market developments?
• Does your current risk framework drive timely, top-notch decision making?
• Can you proactively analyze the changes in exposures to your financial performance?
• Is your risk management process coordinated and consistent across the entire enterprise? Does everyone use the same definition of risk?
• Is risk data accessible to anyone who needs to see it, in a form they need to see, when they need to see it?
• Are you ahead of your competitors in meeting regulatory expectations about firmwide risk reporting and monitoring?

With these questions answered, you've developed a roadmap that you and your team can follow to begin the education process. David Rogers, SAS' Global Product Marketing Manager in Risk, gives three recommendations to deploy an enterprise risk management program: 1.) Embed risk management as part of your organizational culture; 2.) Integrate a governance, risk and compliance program; and 3.) Immerse yourself in the evolving world of risk. As a first step toward immersing yourself in the evolving world of risk - take a look at the thought leadership articles and examples on the Risk Management Knowledge Exchange.