If you are going to start your own company, as one of the directors or owners, you should take into account that the risk will be present at all times of development of the company. The technological part that is advancing by leaps, different factors including intense changes of the environment, the intensification of competition, the reduction of barriers to entry will always be there and you need to recognize the risk and be ready to deal with them. You should “take step of Threat Identification towards risk management”.
To minimize these different factors we have come up with a help called “risk management”, which is still not implemented in all sectors, in our country.
Risk management is a process carried out by the Board of Directors of an entity, address and all its remaining personnel, designed to identify potential events that may affect the Organization, manage their risks within the accepted risk and provide a reasonable assurance on the achievement of the objectives. It’s the integral action for the approach of a disaster situation. It allows determining the risks, intervening to modify them, reduce them, delete them or make relevant preparation to respond to damage that, undoubtedly, will cause a certain disaster. But without having enough information about the risks, you may not show up with the required solutions and may cause a major damage to your business. In this article, we will help you with the methods of recognizing a risk or threat that may greatly help you to get how many types threat you may face and to decide what all the homework you needed to do, in order to deal with suck threat.
In risk management, responders should bear in mind the importance of sharing a language in common that facilitate mutual understanding and help to make more efficient the work between the different actors before, during and after an emergency. For this reason, below are terms that have been agreed at international level in the field of risk management.
What is a Threat?
A threat can is described by any external factor of risk with the potential to cause social, environmental and economic damage to a community during certain period of time.
Threat Identification according to its origin, it may be:
1. Natural:
These are the risks that don’t involve human activity, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, some types of floods, landslides, among others.
Anthropogenic or generated by human activity: events as fire, explosions, pollution, accidents of the massive transport, among others.
2. Mixed:
These risks are a product of a natural process modified by human activity, as mudslides by deforestation of hillsides, droughts, landslides due to bad construction of roads, canals, houses, etc.
3. Emergency:
It is an alteration or damage of different kind (to health, property, the environment, etc.) that demands immediate response of the affected community, caused by natural events, generated by human activity or by the combination of the two, whose response actions can be managed with locally available resources.
4. Disaster:
These are adverse events of greater magnitude than emergencies, making it exceed the response capacity of the affected community and require external support, either from another region, jurisdiction or governmental level.
5. Vulnerability:
It is an internal risk factor of a community exposed to a threat, depending on your predisposition to be damaged. There is to be done or do something to stop: the geographical location of the cities, the quality of the housing, the level of maintenance in all kinds of public services, the type of economic production, the degree of social organization, capacity management, etc.
6. Other Risks:
It refers to the probability in a community of social, environmental and economic damage in certain period of time, depending on the threat and vulnerability. A good risk management minimizes the potential damage, acting promptly before, during and after of produced a disaster.