The latest Horizon Scan Report, sponsored by BSI, identifies new emerging risks for 2021 because of changed business circumstances.

The legacy of Covid-19 has led to political risks and violence returning to the top 10 for the first time in three years, while disruption to IT and telecoms services are predicted to continue, particularly as new technology is brought to market to help society build back post-pandemic.

Despite the changing risk landscape, climate risk continues to feature high on the corporate agenda. Over the medium-to-long-term, organizations identified climate risks as the highest concern, with more incidents of extreme weather expected and more governments setting environmental targets, such as the UK’s 2050 net zero target.

However, there is a more optimistic outlook ahead. The heightening of such risks, together with ongoing uncertainty, has led to organizations improving their risk trend analysis, with an all-time high of 81 per cent now performing longer-term trend analysis.

Respondents reported that the pandemic has been the catalyst to accelerating the introduction of a more structured, centralized analysis programme, with managers largely driving the change. With this, comes a positive expectation for business continuity to continue receiving good investments in the year ahead. 

Please login into your website profile to download your PDF copy of the report. If you do no have a BCI website profile, you can create one here for free.