Risk in business

Any business faces risks at some time or another. Some may be easy to avoid or foresee, and thus measures can be taken to avoid or reduce them. Student Accountant (the ACCA’s student magazine) of June 16th last includes a feature on the recent volcanic ash cloud take caused chaos over European airspace on April this year. It might be something the airlines had not really thought about before now, but you can bet they now include disruption from volcanic ash in their assessment of business risk. The estimated losses from the disruption are in excess of $1bn – not exactly what the already recession hit airline sector needed.  Can all business risks be eliminated ?  Of course not, but businesses can try to minimise or reduce risks. As mentioned in the article,  a four point TARA model can be used to assess risk: