Course overview
Every organisation faces risk, but few manage it strategically. This enterprise risk management short course gives managers, risk professionals and executives the tools to identify, assess and respond to risk at an organisational level. Drawing on internationally recognised frameworks including ISO 31000 and COSO ERM, learners develop the ability to design risk registers, set risk appetite statements, build governance structures and embed a risk-aware culture. The course also addresses emerging risk categories including cyber risk, ESG risk and supply chain disruption, making it directly relevant to today's complex risk landscape.
Who it is for
Risk professionals, compliance officers, senior managers, board members and executives responsible for overseeing or improving risk management frameworks within their organisation.
ERM framework and learning outcomes
Participants leave with a structured risk management methodology, the ability to design and implement ERM frameworks aligned with ISO 31000 and the governance knowledge to ensure risk is managed consistently at every level of the organisation.
How the course aligns with ISO 31000
ISO 31000 is an international guidance standard for risk management. It sets out principles, a framework and a process, but it is not a certification standard, so neither this course nor any organisation can be "ISO 31000 certified". The course teaches you to apply its principles and process, alongside the COSO ERM framework, to the way your own organisation sets appetite, assesses risk and reports it to leadership.
What you will study
Establish the foundational principles of enterprise risk management, covering the definition and taxonomy of risk, the distinction between risk management and control, and the business case for a systematic, organisation-wide approach to managing risk.
Apply ERM principles to your own organisation's risk environment. Identify the most significant risks facing your business, assess the current maturity of your risk management practices and define the priority actions for improving them.
Examine high-profile cases where poor risk management contributed to major corporate failures, regulatory penalties or reputational damage. Extract the governance, cultural and process lessons and apply them to strengthening your own organisation's risk management.
Learn the principal risk management tools and techniques, including risk registers, probability-impact matrices, heat maps, bow-tie analysis, FMEA and Monte Carlo simulation. Understand when each tool is most appropriate and how to interpret its outputs.
Build a practical ERM implementation roadmap for your organisation, defining the risk governance structures, policies, processes and reporting frameworks you will put in place to manage risk systematically and embed a risk-aware culture.
Develop metrics and review processes for assessing the effectiveness of your ERM programme over time. Learn how to conduct risk management reviews, report on risk to boards and audit committees and demonstrate the value ERM delivers to the organisation.
Master the structured process for identifying and assessing risks across the enterprise: how to run risk workshops, how to evaluate likelihood and impact consistently, how to aggregate risks across business units and how to ensure the assessment is comprehensive rather than political.
Learn how to design and implement risk mitigation strategies appropriate to each risk category and risk appetite. Covers risk avoidance, reduction, transfer and acceptance strategies, and how to choose and combine them within a coherent risk response framework.
Develop the skills to communicate risk information clearly and confidently to boards, audit committees, regulators, investors and employees. Learn how to structure risk reporting so that the right people have the right information to make informed governance decisions.
Build a systematic approach to monitoring regulatory compliance and tracking the performance of risk controls over time. Covers control testing frameworks, key risk indicators, early warning systems and the escalation processes that ensure risk issues are surfaced quickly.
Practical risk tools
The course covers the principal risk management tools, including risk registers, probability-impact matrices, heat maps, bow-tie analysis, FMEA and Monte Carlo simulation, and when each is appropriate.
Example: one entry in a risk register
Designing a usable risk register is one of the practical skills the course covers. The entry below is fictional and simplified, but it shows the fields that make a register useful for decisions rather than a list nobody reads.
| Risk | Loss of our main payment provider for more than 24 hours |
|---|---|
| Cause and consequence | Provider outage or contract dispute, so online orders cannot be taken and revenue and customer trust fall |
| Owner | Head of Finance (a named person, not a department) |
| Inherent rating | Likelihood 3 of 5, impact 5 of 5: high |
| Existing controls | Service-level agreement with the provider; outage alerts to the on-call team |
| Residual rating and appetite | Likelihood 2, impact 4: above the board's stated appetite for revenue disruption |
| Response | Reduce: contract a second provider and test switching every quarter |
| Review date | End of next quarter, or immediately after any outage |
Scores like these are ordinal: they rank risks for discussion and are not probabilities or loss estimates. A second worked entry, with defined scoring scales and a register template you can copy, is in the risk register practice pack.
Exercises and application
Teaching is designed to be interactive, applied and professionally relevant. Activities may include case discussion, guided exercises, workplace examples, short presentations, reflective planning and tutor-led feedback.
You apply ERM principles to your own organisation's risk environment, work through case studies of major risk failures, and build a practical ERM implementation roadmap for your organisation.
Delivery
| Live Online | Campus (London) | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | £682 | £1,925 |
| Where you study | Live online, taught in UK time. Joining from India, the UAE or China? Admissions send the timetable converted to your timezone | Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX |
| Duration | 2 to 6 weeks, depending on the format you choose | |
| Suits | Risk and compliance professionals, senior managers, board members and executives who oversee or improve risk management | |
| For teams | Corporate delivery for a group from one organisation is available. Ask admissions about dates and format | |
Fees and dates
Fees are £682 for the Live Online route and £1,925 for the Campus route in London, charged in pounds sterling. The course runs over 2 to 6 weeks, depending on the format you choose; admissions confirm the next dates when you enquire. Ask admissions for the session times and the study expected between sessions, so you can plan the course around your work. For a group from one organisation, ask about corporate delivery.
Guides to read alongside the course
Practical reading on the topics the course covers:
- How to build an enterprise risk management framework
- Risk register example: fields, ownership and review
- Risk appetite vs risk tolerance: a practical business example
- Risk assessment matrices: how to use them and where they fall short
For the whole decision in order, read the enterprise risk management subject guide: entry, workload, cost, the choices to compare and the questions to ask. When you are ready, ask admissions a question.
