Functional Focus
Each quarter, KBR Link’s Functional Focus highlights some of the teams behind the business and explains how their work, recent wins, improvements, and new initiatives affect you and benefit KBR.
Risk and Reward
KBR’s Enterprise Risk Management Leads to Better Outcomes for Employees, Customers and Shareholders
Since being featured in the Q3 2020 edition of KBR Link, KBR’s Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) team has developed and implemented an enhanced approach to looking at risk across the entire organization, from the executive and board levels to project and program levels. The team has modernized the ERM process with the latest digital tools, providing more consistency, transparency and accountability in the risk management framework. The launch of the enhanced approach initially focused on Sustainable Technology Solutions (STS), but it has since been expanded to include Government Solutions as well. Now every one of KBR’s 32,000 global employees has a role to play in the approach to risk management.
“We’re a small team that works across the enterprise to help the businesses identify their top threats and opportunities,” said Jeremy Ford, director of Business Risk and ERM. “We ask pointed questions of business leaders to generate discussions about how things could go awry so we can be proactive and address things before they happen. We want risk management to be embedded as a fundamental business principle in each business unit, and we want all employees to be aware of our ERM strategy and offer insights that contribute to its success.”
About the ERM Approach
KBR’s modernized approach supports each of our business’s strategic objectives by delivering real-time visibility of their risk profiles, which enables better decision-making based on a centralized and consistent source of risk data.
The KBR ERM Framework guides business leaders and employees to identify, assess, analyze, mitigate, monitor, and evaluate critical threats and opportunities. By minimizing threats and capitalizing on opportunities, ERM creates and protects value while driving KBR to business resilience.
The ERM framework enables agile risk management through:
- Proactive, discussion-driven identification of threats and opportunities
- Collaborative, real-time assessment of risk criticality
- Transparent visibility of risk mitigations, which drives individual accountability
- Comprehensive, consistent reporting of risk across portfolios
This approach facilitates informed, transparent and defensible strategy decisions, while also reducing uncertainty. Addressing, managing and monitoring business risks also helps strengthen KBR’s reputation as a responsible corporate entity with all stakeholders.
“Enterprise Risk Management is one of KBR’s 10 Sustainability Pillars,” said Michael Scrase, global manager, Enterprise Risk Management. “Risks are inherent to business. When we can analyze and manage risks appropriately, we can identify strategic opportunities for sustainable business growth and avoid negative outcomes for our employees, customers and shareholders.”
Why Risk Should Matter To YOU!
Did you know that identifying and mitigating risk is a part of your job? KBR, like all businesses, is exposed to risk on a regular basis. These risks, if not properly identified and mitigated, can lead to negative business consequences that affect our jobs. Just like you think of Zero Harm regarding physical safety and environmental sustainability, the ERM team wants you to also think of Zero Harm in terms of risk. If you see or hear of any conditions that put KBR at risk, speak up to your manager. Think of it as a Courage to Care Conversation for our corporate well-being — just like you would for a colleague’s well-being.
Examples of risks that may be realized at the project level include insufficient project or program staffing, economic inflation resulting in escalation to supply chain pricing, or metal alloy shortages leading to extended lead times on equipment. These items, among many others, all have the potential to impact KBR objectives and our clients.
