Our purpose is to make an impact that matters. We do this by giving our clients the confidence to grow responsibly and sustainably in a rapidly changing economy.
- Lasse Ingström, Head of Risk Advisory
Within the last years we have grown our business and expect this to continue steadily. We want to elevate risk management as a strategic lever for our clients, and thus, we continue building our client relationships, our teams and competencies. By developing digital platforms and continuous risk management services, we help our clients with a responsible digital transformation.
For Risk Advisory, FY22 was a great year. There was a steady demand for all risk-related services throughout the year from clients across different industries. Post-Covid uncertainty and the start of the war by Russia pushed risk management and resiliency even higher on corporates’ agendas. Additionally, megatrends – such as accelerating digitalisation and the growing need for sustainable business models – drove our cyber and sustainability services. We also continued building a strong team specialised in SAP security and controls. At the same time, there was a steady demand for more traditional services, such as our internal audit service, which is already the market-leading service.
The growing need for risk management expertise
During FY22 we onboarded a lot of new professionals equally to all our service lines. For the first time, the Risk Advisory business unit’s headcount exceeded 100 professionals. Even more importantly, we finally appointed our first female partner in Risk Advisory. We are prioritising efforts to have more female leaders going forward. We have also increased the industry orientation of our professionals. Requirements for risk management skills are different, for example, in the public sector than they are in the manufacturing industry. For the public sector, we see a lot of growth opportunities, which is why we recruited a new industry leader to serve public sector clients with risk advisory services. The Financial Services Risk has been a key driver for our growth over the past few years, and it continues to be in high demand.
We continue building our teams and competencies, but at the same time we acknowledge that our business growth is limited by the insufficient amount of experienced risk domain specialists in the Finnish market. On the other hand, we are proud to supplement our local expertise through Deloitte’s vastly experienced global network. A good example of this is the increased amount of managed cyber services that we deliver to our clients through our European Cyber Center.
Uncertainties drive the market
We have a significant growth ambition for FY23 and the following years. Risk Advisory is not a new business area, but it responds to some of the biggest growth opportunities out there: cyber and sustainability opportunities (which are growing 10–20% a year). Moreover, sustainability matters are no longer viewed as an independent agenda but rather are an integrated part of other services and organisations’ strategies. We aim to win market share in these rapidly changing areas of risk management. Additionally, Operational Risk and Regulatory Risk businesses are likewise fast-growing.
Looking at the market, we can already see that organisations have bigger budgets for risk management and the projects are larger than before. General uncertainty has led to organisations having a greater desire to improve resiliency by identifying, assessing and managing risks. They understand that the effects are nowadays significantly wider reaching, extending through organisations, supply chains and geographical boundaries. We want to be there to help our clients both create and protect value with leading-edge risk management.