Risky Business: Managing the challenges that keep you awake at night – meet the panel

Interesting facts from Tim’s perspective

• Past and recent bushfires have revealed the majority of Australian businesses do not have Business Interruption insurance.
• Underinsurance is also a major problem for both personal and business clients.
• An annual review of your business insurances should be a priority.
• Cyber Risks continues to be the #1 risk facing Australian businesses.

Interesting facts from Harvey’s perspective

A business risk is a future possibility that may prevent you from achieving a business goal. Most businesses would be surprised to know that at least 20 different types of risk have been identified in relation to running businesses of all sizes, ranging from the more obvious ones such as economic, cyber and legal risk to more subtle types of risk such as strategy, country or innovation risk. Larger businesses will be aware of most of the types of risk involved in running a large corporation, but smaller businesses often don’t have the resources to adequately identify and manage their risk. For example, many smaller businesses would not have considered the political risk relating to the federal election last year. Without doubt, the uncertainty surrounding any federal election makes consumers more cautious, but once the result was known, most businesses showed renewed activity, because there was some certainty in the political sphere, notwithstanding the looming possibility of a worldwide recession.

Interesting facts from Jeanine’s perspective

• 2018 v 2019 29% increase in defaults over this period
• Q4 2018 v Q4 2019 there was a 15% increase in defaults
• The industries recording the largest number of defaults 2018 v 2019 were:
– Transport (64%)
– Heath care (79%)
– Real Estate Services (61%)
• Payment Terms – the slowest payers are (on average):
– IT, media & telco (62 days)
– Financial Services (63 days)
– Construction (64 days)
• In relation to Court Actions, Victoria was the lowest with only a 4% increase on 2018 whilst NSW (39%), WA (33%) and SA (57%) were the worst. Australia had a yearly increase of 9% in Court Actions
• The total number of insolvencies 2018 v 2019 showed a decrease of 14%-year v year.
• The industry with the largest percentage of defaults for the year was Mining (74%) increase
• The number of bankruptcies over the same period showed a decrease of 19%
– This is a 25 year low for bankruptcies
– 25% of all bankruptcies are business related
– Natural disasters often lead to a spike in bankruptcies. Expect a rise in the coming 6 to 12 months due to the fires.
Source Creditor Watch, January 2020

Interesting facts from Damien’s perspective

I spend a great deal of time consulting on IT security and the biggest threat I’m seeing to business at the moment is the rise of social engineering. Two years ago, ransomware was running rampant; now it’s phishing.

Cyber criminals are adapting to our increasing security consciousness. If they can’t find a way in to their primary target, they now look to compromise a secondary one and move laterally through the network to meet their objective. Your network may no longer be the only one at risk, as this lateral movement opens us all up to compromise.