Les trois petits cochons - A tale in ERM

The ultimate fate of the wolf in the story of the three little pigs (or les trois petits cochons) formed the conclusion of a hypothetical case study in enterprise risk management (ERM) presented by AIRMIC's technical director,

Paul Hopkin, to the French risk management association, AMRAE. Hopkin took part in the annual Rencontres of AMRAE held at Deauville on the Normandy coast on 23-25 January, together with AIRMIC members, Paul Taylor of Tetra-Laval, Kip Berkeley-Herring from BT, Nick Chown from the Metropolitan Police andMatthew McEwan from Honeywell.

Hopkin gave a preliminary indication of the findings of the study AIRMIC commissioned from Det Norske Veritas to identify and evaluate organisations that have implemented ERM between 2005 and 2007. The final results will be ready by the time of AIRMIC's annual conference in June.

One case study concluded that ERM had reduced risk exposure by at least $£10m over the two year period, and possibly twice as much.

The big bad wolf, on the other hand, said Hopkin, had exploited porcine errors and blew down two houses, but failed to assess risks, ate too much fatty food and ended up in the pot.