Steps in Assessment of High Impact Risks
Risk Identification
The first step of Assessment of High Impact Risk is to identify the risks. Risks can be identified on the basis of regional dynamics, industry trends and macroeconomic volatility. These can range from supply chain vulnerabilities, trade wars, energy shocks or climate triggered events. Once these events are identified, it is easier for organisations to gauge their vulnerabilities and mitigating strategies.
Scenario Modelling
After identifying the key high-risk events, organisations can run advanced simulation and analytics to analyse the worst-case scenarios. For instance, recent events such as undersea cable damage in Baltic Sea, makes it evident that undersea cable sabotage could be a near-time possibility. A simulation considering what happens if a major undersea cable goes down. Scenario thinking prepares institutions to handle the
Vulnerability Mapping
After conducting simulations, businesses can assess their internal weaknesses such as single source dependencies, fragile IT infrastructure and lack of redundancies.
Impact-Likelihood Prioritisation
With the help of quantification of risks, businesses can categorise the risks and create risk matrices. Usually, high-likelihood risks can be handled by operational teams on routinely basis, however, high impact risks demand strategic level management and long term planning.
Mitigation and Resilience Planning
Developing a layered response strategies with respect to the risk matrices. For instance, each risk can be mapped to a control measure (technical, procedural, or human), an estimated cost (capital or operational), owner of the risk (department or vendor), a timeline for implementation, and a measurable performance metric (e.g., reduced incident response time, increased system uptime).
Conducting the above steps can enable a robust assessment of high impact risks and make businesses resilient.
The Private Sector’s Expanding Role
Private organisations especially in finance, energy, logistics, healthcare, and digital infrastructure are ats the frontline of high-impact disruptions. They must evolve from being responders to resilience architects.
Key responsibilities include:
- Regular stress testing and impact modelling
- Integrating high impact risk into Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)
- Cross-sector partnerships with public agencies
- Supply chain de-risking and diversification
- Employee awareness and business continuity drills
Final Thoughts
In a world of increasing volatility, those who anticipate disruption have a decisive edge. By integrating high impact risk assessments into strategic planning, organisations protect not only profits but people, purpose, and future potential.
Your Trusted Security Partner – MitKat
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