At the beginning of May, one of the major events in the industry of Risk Management, namely the RISKWORLD conference in San Diego organized by the Risk Management Society, gathered more than 10,000 risk managers and other professionals from all over the world. The event held from 5 to 8 May included a wide array of talks, speeches, and discussions dedicated to the current trend of the industry and its key trends in the coming years. The career path of Ksenia Rakhimzade, a leading risk management expert, is a perfect illustration of how the trends play out in practice, what changes they bring to the industry, and how to turn them into opportunities.
Ksenia Rakhimzade has seen the industry go through a transformation more than once. She began her career path in 2004 at the Basic Element Group of Companies, taking the position of a risk manager in 2007. Since there were close to no appropriate education opportunities in Russia, she got a degree at the Institute of Risk Management in the UK. Later, she played a significant part in bringing the newest approaches to risk management to the Russian market. Later, she was responsible for risk management strategies in PepsiCo, working with the whole area of Russia, CIS countries, and Ukraine. "Mitigating and avoiding risks was an essential part of my work and the most obvious one. However, it isn't limited to that," explains Ksenia Rakhimzade, "While managing risks is necessary for any business to survive, to move forward, you need to manage opportunities, and this is what more and more professionals are focusing on now.".
The Growing Importance of Big Data
One of the major factors that influence the current approaches to risk management is the increasing role big data plays in the process. Since 2022, Ksenia Rakhimzade has explored this approach, focusing on digital transformation and the opportunities it opens for the retail business. She states that big data has the potential to transform the retail sector as a whole, not being limited to the functioning of a particular company. "Big data, along with the other digital tools, allows businesses to implement approaches to planning, giving them a more precise way to predict the shifts in the changing market and use new opportunities to their advantage," adds Ksenia. "Soon, the digital transformation may become a necessity for any major business who wants to retain its market share."
The Sustainable Approach
However, chasing profits and leaving competitors behind cannot be the sole purpose. "Sustainability" is another word that can be heard increasingly often at industry conferences and public talks. A sustainable approach to risk management allows the company to be proactive and answer nascent challenges as they emerge. In her articles, such as Comprehensive Analysis of the Risk Management in the International Business, published in 2022, Ksenia Rakhimzade highlights the significance of the holistic approach, which accounts for the type of risks and their specifics when determining the best course of action.
"When the structure of the market becomes increasingly complex, with lots of players and a multitude of factors to account for," she adds, "the role of cutting-edge technologies for sustainable risk management is hard to overestimate." Models developed with the use of machine learning may allow companies and analytics to predict the future state of the market and get insights based on the vast amounts of unstructured data. Consequently, instead of reacting to the arising negative events or critical situations, businesses will be able to research more scenarios in advance and choose the best course of action.
Risks and Advantages of Generative AI
The fact that the large language models and other AI tools will bring changes of unprecedented depth is recognized across many industries, which can be illustrated by the mere number of conferences and public talks dedicated to the oncoming transformation. In the first half of 2024, Ksenia Rakhimzade has spoken at two conferences dedicated to the topic, namely, AI World Solution Summit and Cloud Transformation Conference, both organized by TechForge Media, UK. "There is no doubt that the industry will evolve, incorporating new approaches and tools, developing new guidelines and regulations," she comments, "but it is yet to see what changes exactly will the new technologies bring and how will the businesses and professionals adapt to them. Consequently, it is necessary to keep the discussions and share perspectives with people from adjacent industries to get the more integral picture."
As was already mentioned above, AI technology brings new opportunities to the table, but at the same time, it creates additional risks that need to be accounted for. Choosing the right AI tool for a particular task, such as planning or customer behavior analysis, becomes a challenge by itself, as new solutions are developed and enter the market every month. This challenge, in turn, creates a demand for professionals who are competent in AI technologies in addition to their primary area of expertise. "The holistic and sustainable approach to risk management becomes essential," concludes Ksenia Rakhimzade, "To mitigate risks while pursuing new opportunities and laying the ground for long-term success, companies will have to integrate new technological solutions into their processes."
To sum up, the trends described by Ksenia Rakhimzade combine into a promising perspective. However, to fully use the novelties to their advantage, companies will need to learn new technologies and adapt them without delay or hesitation.
