RISK MANAGEMENT SUPPORT FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS
We focus on;
- Strategic direction – What might affect the firms intentions to exit, acquire, grow, increase profitability, develop or hire people
- Underlying weaknesses and threats within the firm and how to tackle them
- Horizon scanning – what is going to happen in the next 12 months that will affect general trading outcomes
- Regulatory and compliance weaknesses which could bring the firm down
- How well equipped the firm is to survive a major event – client money loss, exit of key staff, regulatory investigation or cash flow issues
We categorise client groups based on Size of firm;
- Large (25 Partner plus, and/or Fee Income above £10m)
- Small and Medium Firms (2 – 25 Partners and/or Fee income £750k and above)
There are three options;
Target areas for audit;
- Strategic Assessment – desk top exercise based on documents and questionnaire – free service
- Detailed assessment – desk top plus site visits with more in depth focus on practices and documentation – costed standalone audit
- Large firms – doesn’t involve major insurance placement
- Small and medium firms – fee refunded in whole or part if appointed to place PII and other covers using outcome of audit.
- Detailed assessment with action plan – as above but includes ongoing support with training and development – likely to be for large firms only
- Risk Register
- BCP
- Risk Analysis
- Risk Funding
- Risk Maturity Measuring/Matrix
- Risk Control Practices
- Risk Event recording and analysis
- Integrated Insurance analysis and benchmarking
- Cascade effectiveness analysis
Outcomes
Clients use the results to;
- Improve their business performance and protect agasinst unseen events
- A benchmarking “bill of health” to help exit and sale procedures
- A means of enhancing due diligence for a target firm to be acquired
- Help succession where colleagues are being promoted and want comfort around the firms medium term exposures