READY FOR “DERISKIFICATION”
Posted by admin on February 23, 2010 under Press Releases | 
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M E D I A R E L E A S E
22 February 2009 : 14.51
ConsultISM, global leaders in marine safety management, has launched a new campaign to get ship owners and operators to take a long, hard and honest look at their exposure to risk…and what they are going to do about it.
“Shipping is not a game of poker”, says Captain Peter Cooney in the latest edition of ConsultISM’s ReportISM newsletter. Risk is an everyday, unavoidable aspect of the industry, and it is vital to understand how we deal with it, while developing plans and systems to make us more resilient.
Shipping is an exciting business venture, but one laden with risks. Throughout all strategic corporate decisions we are playing with fire, but how can we protect ourselves from getting burned? An important part of the process is a full risk assessment, at all stages considering risk and reward and insured and uninsured risk.
In his article “A Game of Chance”, Captain Cooney takes us on a voyage around our risks – Cooney assess all stages, and elements of the marine adventure, from the crew, cargo, vessel and business, asking whether we are truly able to mitigate or protect ourselves if the worst does happen. In today’s high pressure environment, we need to deconstruct the way we operate, to look at the pieces and “derisk” our business, to ensure our people, vessels, resources, expertise and systems are all adequate – and that there are no hidden weaknesses having a detrimental effect on the business.
ConsultISM’s Managing Director, Dr Phil Anderson is clear on the importance of the industry waking to the risks it faces, and of the paramount importance of dealing with them through a fresh new approach of “‘Deriskification”!
Dr Anderson states, “Certainly from our own observations of a wide range of ship operating companies, the many and varied hazards have not always been recognised or indeed fully assessed. Failure to identify hazards means the risks cannot be properly assessed – or effectively managed.
Risks which are not effectively managed pose very real threats to the Company and to individuals within the Company – particularly at a very senior level. The process which a Company goes through of identifying its hazards, conducting a risk assessment and implementing appropriate action to reduce those risks to an absolute minimum is what we mean by the term ‘Deriskification’.
In Captain Cooney’s experience, shipping people are more likely to be reactive. When the call comes and an incident or accident has occurred, then and only then do we recognize the risk and the impact of events, and the full awful realization of what this could mean to people and the company.
Within shipping’s regulatory environment, the ISM Code and Safety Management Systems (SMS), Cooney reminds us, that lawyers are becoming increasingly aware of the potential for the ISM code not to act as a shield to protect individuals and the company, but as a sword to attack.
His conclusion is that the best, most powerful and cost effective solution to control the eye popping experience of an accident and to keep us all out of jail, is to have this total faith in the risk control elements contained within a SMS. So ConsultISM asks, “Do you have faith and are you controlling risk?”
According to Dr Phil: ‘Whilst ConsultISM has an international reputation as being the leading authority on the ISM Code and marine safety management – what we are really doing in practice is working with ship operating companies helping them with their own “Deriskification” process.
Remember, unidentified hazards in a Company represent ‘weak links’ in that organisation and any Company is only as strong as its weakest link. Is it not time you had a health check? ‘
Contact Dr Phil Anderson and the ConsultISM team of experts if you would like to discuss your requirements or how we can help you ‘de-risk’ your business on: enquiries@consultism.co.uk or +44(0)1434 605512
To learn more and read the latest edition of ReportISM including the full article ‘A Game of Chance’, visit www.consultism.co.uk
Ends
Notes to Editors:
ReportISM is the quarterly e-zine of ConsultISM Ltd – it is available through free subscription, and has a global readership of around 5,000 safety management professionals – across ship owners and managers, lawyers, consultants and educational establishments.
ConsultISM Ltd is a global leader and supplier of marine safety management and consultancy services.
Headed by Managing Director, Dr Phil Anderson, the ConsultISM team of experts is available to assist with all ISM Code and safety management matters. See www.consultism.co.uk for more details.
Captain Peter Cooney, Non-Executive Director of ConsultISM. Following a career at sea, he moved ashore in 1973 and worked in Ship Management organisations for over 29 years. He joined Acomarit in 1987 and was appointed Chief Executive Officer for the Acomarit Group in 1999. In January 2001 on the merger of V.Ships and Acomarit he was appointed Managing Director of V.Ships Ship Management Division.
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