Managing Operational Risk

Managing risks become a very challenging task for any organization and one of its priorities. The rising complexity of modern business processes, the globalization and the IT business perspective determined important changes in making business approach bringing opportunities but also increasing risks. Recent years have emphasized concern and focus on risk, and it became increasingly clear that a need exists for a robust framework to effectively identify, assess, and manage risk. COSO response to this need was materialized in its Enterprise Risk Management – Integrated Framework providing key principles and concepts, a clear direction and guidance in managing risks. The financial and economic crisis showed the importance of a strong risk management process and the need of important changes in order to improve the risk management process in each organization. Romanian companies were strongly affected by the crisis. One of the most important reasons is the ineffective risk management system in the company. Operational risk is complex and its impact on companies’ activity and financial results is high. Its complexity makes more difficult the effort to define dedicated models for its measurement. Modeling and better managing the operational risk is one of the priorities in all big organizations. The present paper focuses on the main issues on operational risk management implementation and presents the authors’ research results regarding operational risk management as an important part of the risk management process.