34 / 40
March 2015
A
urecon South Africa’s Opera-
tional andProject RiskManage-
ment team won the award for
‘Best Risk Consultancy’ at the 2014
annual Institute of Risk Management
South Africa (IRMSA) Awards. Accord-
ing to Simon van Wyk from Aurecon,
“This achievement highlights Aure-
con’s aptitude for providing in-depth
solutions to the complex project risks
that our clients face.”
There are a number of risks, in-
cluding disaster risk, financial risk,
environmental risk and operational
risk, that need to be assessed and
managed before a project can com-
mence, and none of these risks
should be viewed in a ‘silo’.
Several of Aurecon’s clients have
been factoring risk assessment and
management into their project costs
during the concept phase of projects
for many years. Working with ‘risk
mature’ clients gives risk consul-
tants the advantage of not having to
justify methodologies and with what
might appear to be ‘over-analysis’ of
project risks. With clients who have
not worked with risk management
consultants, the risk assessment pro-
cess is not always the easiest learning
curve. “The nature of risk manage-
ment is an in-depth analysis to inform
decision-making and ensuring that
our clients understand the outputs
of these robust and detailed analysis
methodologies is paramount.”
Aurecon uses several method-
ologies and tools that are globally
accepted to assess
and evaluate poten-
tial risks. For sizeable
CAPEX projects, this is
centred on determin-
ing the potential like-
lihood, consequence
and predicted cost
that risk may pose to a project’s
success viz. planning appropriate
contingency within the allocated
CAPEX budget.
“Many clients operate in environ-
ments that change at a quick pace
and one of the key challenges that a
risk management solution needs to
address is the level of uncertainty that
clients face,” says van Wyk.
He points out that instead of
seeing risk management as a ‘nice
to have’ on projects, an increasing
number of clients realise that not
only their projects, but their entire
business philosophy, needs to be
risk averse. In light of this, businesses
are adopting a risk-centric business
philosophy which entails proactive
measures to harness opportunities
through sound principles of risk
management.
“Instead of hop-
ing for the best,
leading companies
know tha t they
need to measure
their risks in each
phase of the project
life cycle. This type
of preparation leads to progressive
and informed decision-making,” adds
van Wyk.
“All of the standards, systems
and techniques can be in place, but
without the years of experience in risk
management, none of these will add
the kind of value that a client needs
from an internationally leading risk
management team. Partnering with
an experienced risk consultant is
key to ensuring a project succeeds,”
concludes van Wyk.
■
Infrastructure & Mixed Use
‘Partnering with
an experienced risk
consultant is key to
ensuring a project’s
success,’
Reducing
the risk
While many companies understand that risk management brings
value to a project, there’s often still a learning curve that needs to
be overcome in order to get everyone on board. It is important to
understand the objectives and value of including risk management
during the design and execution phases of a project.