A risk and control self-assessment (RCSA) is an effective tool in the risk management arsenal. It allows the organization to understand its risks and their potential effects on the business. It’s a formal exercise many organizations conduct annually.

An RCSA can be a time-consuming exercise requiring engagement from the business’s senior leadership and technology teams; however, the benefits are enormous. By the end of the day a common view emerges on the challenges and risks that face an organization, including:

• What the major known risks are
• Which of these risks will limit the ability of the organization to complete its mission
• What plans are in place to deal with these risks
• Who “owns” the management and monitoring of these risks

The RCSA process is often not well understood or leveraged. It contains the business leaders’ view of their risks. Consequently, they are an ideal source of information to support your risk management program. If you demonstrate how managing risks to data reduces the risks identified in the RCSA, you will get the attention of management and increased opportunity to win their support.

The RCSA contains detailed risk information that shows the impact on an organization in the event that key processes and technology are not available. You use the RCSA to develop risk management plans, such as where to place quality assurance and quality control routines. The RCSA also contains multiple scenarios. Each scenario details the risks and effects on the business. The main intent of an RCSA is to ensure that these risks are identified and assigned to an individual executive to manage.

The RCSA approach is not a standard used across all industries. Although any organization can use the RCSA, and many use some form of it under a different name, it’s only one of many approaches used to manage risk. Which approach to use is less important than having a systematic approach to managing risk in the first place. That said, the RCSA can provide an organization with a new opportunity to identify and plan for unexpected or emerging risks. These may include new operational risks resulting from shifts in the regulatory or market environment. Additionally, this approach can be used to align thinking about risk and awareness of it across the enterprise.