Macroeconomic risks are often overlooked by SME managers when conducting risk assessments. Macro risks like wars, credit crises, market changes and technological disruptions can have catastrophic implications for SMEs.
"...small-medium sized businesses (SME), public sector entities, the communities in which they operate, and society at large are exposed to many factors that are outside the control of executives and policy makers. These exposures span a variety of influences ranging from commodity and financial market prices, macroeconomic conditions, operational disruptions, human misconduct, technological shifts, competitor moves, sociopolitical events, natural hazards, man-made disasters, etc.
Each of these risk areas are addressed through rather disparate practices of financial risk analysis, exposure limits, actuarial modeling, insurance contracting, alternative risk-transfer, contingency planning, risk mitigation, preparedness, etc. Business enterprise and society are also faced with potential systemic risks embedded in interacting global markets, worldwide climatic changes, and threats of international terrorism. All of this accentuates a need for effective strategic risk management practices to deal with these phenomena both at corporate management and public policy levels." Torben Anderson, Copenhagen Business School
Macroeconomic Risk App (MERA)
The objective of MERA is to provide SME's a self assessment tool to score and manage macroeconomic and event risks that impacts the profitability and growth of SMEs. These risk factors embody great risk to the business franchise and offer opportunities presented by rapidly changing business conditions and market dislocations. MERA sizes macroeconomic and event risks; allowing astute managers to initiate actions to mitigate threats and capitalize on the opportunities volatile business cycles present.
MERA offers a self assessment framework for users to score and mitigate the impact of a class of risk under weighted and largely ignored by SME business managers.
Small Business Problems and Priorities
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) study "Small Business Problems and Priorities" details over 75 macro risk factors confronting the SME business segment. MERA includes these factors as well as others for assessment consideration. Users may also enter user defined factors for consideration. Risk factors are color coded and grouped in 10 Problem Clusters.
Risk Clusters:
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costs
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competition
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employees
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finance
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information
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management
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public service/ responsibilities
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regulation
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taxes
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technology
Macro Risk Scoring
MERA's rating scheme helps users score risk factors and their impact. Users define actions that will mitigate risk factors, estimate capital investments required to address risk and calculate a ROI to determine project priorities, funding requirements and expected returns.
MERA aggregates and scores macro enterprise risk , aligns actions and capital investments required to mitigate aggregated macroeconomic and event risk factors confronting the enterprise.
Risk Apps for Mobile Office
MERA is an MS Excel based application. Android users require the use of Mobile Office. MS Excel Mobile Office conversion apps are available for download at no charge on Google Play. A PDF reader and a Zip File Manager are also required to use this app also widely available for no charge on Google Play. The app directs users to a Drop Box to pick up a zip file. A DropBox account is not necessary to access the MERA file.
MERA does not collect or store any data entered into our Mobile Business apps. All data entry is done off line.
Get MERA from Google Play here: Macroeconomic and Event Risk App
risk: MERA, NFIB, event, macroeconomic, risk, sme, problem cluster, risk scoring, sme
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