Typically organisations are measured on whether they achieve their stated strategic objectives.

Strategic risks such as loss of customers, cancelled orders, failed product launches and poor investments are often those that make or break a business, but they can be hard to define, measure and manage.

They are also typically hard to transfer to the insurance market. Such realities can discourage managers from evaluating such risks and encourage fatalism.

Organisations that get on top of accurately assessing and controlling strategic risks can gauge the major threats to their financial targets and business objectives.

They also position themselves to take calculated, successful risks and avoid the problem of risk aversion.

Critical questions you need to consider.

• To what extent do you need to reconsider whether many strategic risks are outside your control?
• To what extent are you unable to take risks because of a perceived notion of major external, strategic threats such as strong competition?
• Could anxiety about your major investments be down to an ineffective understanding of the risks to the investment?
• Does your strategic risk assessment lack clarity and detail compared to your assessments of other risk categories?