My first professional role in corporate America happened to be in Sourcing and Procurement, where I observed a lot of software and technology purchases. I learned that fairly often buyers are tool agnostic. Meaning they don’t care what the tool is, how it looks and, sometimes even, how much it costs, as long as this tool can address their specific business need. At the same time, what I have witnessed is that software companies rarely provide tools that are “process-agnostic”. In other words, the level of flexibility and adaptability a software product has would directly correspond to how well that product can meet a business need, regardless of how complex customer’s processes are.
In an attempt to fulfill market needs and create an effective software that aids processes and individuals, it is essential to follow patterns of human psychology when building software products, automating processes, or building software to automate processes. This is where the idea of conceptual flexibility comes into play; a concept of categorizing various objects or skills on separate occasions (and of course applying them in everyday life). While individuals can experience conceptual flexibility at different levels, we all have been exposed to it in our everyday life. This is the ability to probe your environment, digest it, understand it, embrace it and, as a result, adapt to yield the best outcomes possible in business, in relationship or in spiritual life. Sounds similar to machine learning, right?
I often translate the idea of conceptual flexibility into the everyday work I do. And when looking for a TPRM technology I look for a tool developed with an understanding that it will supplement or replace human labor, as well as understanding that it needs to be flexible to fit any environment it will operate in.
While we all enjoy standardized workflows and automation of repetitive task, the risk management world is never static. It takes time to mature risk management process, it takes time to agree on metrics we want to track, it takes time to make yearly changes to risk appetite, takes time to… etc, etc, etc…. It takes time to learn, it takes time to apply new knowledge and it takes time to mature your processes. A technology that is process-agnostic and can be an enabler during such journey is destined for success.
If you have any ideas or thoughts about this topic I will be happy to hear you out. Contact me at filipets888@gmail.com
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