Risk management is much more than tweaking financial controls and increasing transparency, according to a report from Accenture. And companies around the world should do more than just give it lip service, according to Tony Cunningham, a manager for compliance specialist Wynleigh International, who said:

Today’s world definitely requires much stronger fixes than just twiddling finance and accounting practices. Businesses definitely need to fundamentally change their approach in order to change their core risk processes.

Unfortunately, very few respondents to the Accenture study -- 27 percent -- make risk management part of their objective-setting or performance-management processes. An Accenture press release on MyBroadband.co.za also reports roughly half of respondents said risk management played a part strategic planning (48 percent) and in investment and divestment decisions (45 percent).

Like the economic downturn, the need to improve risk management appears to be a global one. The Accenture study covered 260 risk-management professionals in 21 countries.