Parima promises global programme database for members

Details are currently thin on the ground, but it appears that Parima databse will follow the model adopted by UK risk management association Airmic. It revealed its database, developed in partnership with insurance data provider AXCO, during its annual conference in Birmingham earlier this year. Parima’s initiative was announced during its first annual conference held in Singapore this week. Franck Baron, chairman of the new association and group general manager, risk management and insurance at International SOS, the medical and travel security services company, revealed the plan during his opening speech at the event.hideMr Baron said that risk and insurance managers in Asia are fast catching up with their international peers but conceded that further work needs to be done. Parima was created to provide Asian risk managers with the skills, training, knowledge and lobbying capability to develop the profession. One key area in which the association can help members is international programmes, said Mr Baron. “When you implement international programmes you find that it is extremely complex and increasingly so. There is a lack of consistency when it comes to international programmes,” he told delegates. “We are going to develop a specific tool for members, a compliance database. We will develop this idea over the next few weeks to provide support for the profession,” explained Mr Baron. Another important project for the new association is education, said Mr Baron. He said that the ‘raison d’être’ of Parima is to ensure that Asian risk and insurance managers are equipped with the tools and skills to ‘step up’ and help their companies cope with emerging risks and the complexity of the modern business world. “It is very important that the risk management profession in Asia takes a step up and is rightly engaged in the organisation,” said Mr Baron. “Parima will help risk managers go to the next level so that they are rightly recognised in their organisations. How will we do this? Through education and at a later stage a certification process, and also through research and benchmarking. We also need to step up and discuss key issues with regulators, authorities and the market as a whole. This brings challenges and opportunities for us to step up as professionals,” he continued. The Federation of European Risk Management Associations (Ferma) is currently working on a pan-European certification project that it hopes will help promote the benefits of risk management and raise awareness, appreciation and understanding of what the profession is all about. Mr Baron agrees that this is critical and perhaps even more important in Asia. “Too often I hear from my peers that they have to spend the first 15 minutes of a presentation at board level explaining what we do. CFOs don’t have to do this and neither do general counsel. We need to gain recognition and this is one of the reasons why Parima was established. It is a platform for risk managers in Asia,” he explained. Mr Baron said that globalisation is an important reason why risk managers need to push themselves forward and rise up the corporate agenda. “Integration and cross-border flows impact us each day. This needs to be understood and monitored every day because there is a threat of systemic risk that cannot be ignored, it’s endemic. This risk needs to be managed and risk managers have a role in this,” he said. Mr Baron added that the so-called butterfly effect, by which a butterfly may flap its wings in Brazil and cause a storm in the US, and the threat of ‘externalities’, are further reasons why risk managers need to up their game and profile at board level. “When a company decides to expand to a new country or move production for cost reasons they do not always consider all the impacts such as social and environmental. Risk managers should help the C-suite look at all externalities that are not necessarily integrated into the decision-making equation when a company decides to do business in a certain part of the world,” said Mr Baron. Another danger facing risk managers and their organisations is an obsession with lean and mean management, said Mr Baron. This approach means that previously sensible practices, such as holding stock buffers, no longer occur which can leave companies seriously exposed, he continued. “This can lead to a tick box mentality whereby managers are comfortable that the job is done because all has been placed with one supplier that is very efficient. But there is no substitute for judgement, experience and face-to-face contact. Again risk managers need to step up and support this search for efficiency,” said the Parima chairman.

Parima promises global programme database for members

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