M55GrowStrategy & Growth· Module 5
Business Risk
The business depends on one customer, one supplier, one system or one person. Nobody has written that down.
- Manage
- Institutionalise
- Scale
- Governance
- Strategy
- ~5 min · Template
The business problem
Founder-led businesses often carry concentrated risks — a dominant customer, a single supplier, key-person dependency, unbacked-up data, foreign currency exposure — that are accepted by default rather than by decision.
Why it matters
Risk management is not about avoiding risk; it is about choosing which risks to accept and preparing for the ones that matter. It protects the business and reassures lenders, investors and partners.
What you will learn
- Identify strategic, operational, financial and compliance risks
- Assess likelihood and impact
- Choose mitigations and owners
- Review risks regularly
Core questions
- What single event could seriously damage the business?
- Which dependencies have we accepted without deciding to?
- Who owns each major risk?
- When did we last review our risks?
Work through the module
CaseWhat is happening?
Flower exporter, 200 workers · Illustrative teaching case
A flower exporter sells most of its volume through one European buyer and relies on a single freight forwarder. A disruption at the forwarder halts shipments for a week. The business builds a risk register, adds a second forwarder, and begins developing a second market channel.
Full teaching case: The Big Customer
DecisionWhat does the leader need to decide?
Accept concentration for efficiency, or pay for diversification?
FrameworkHow should they think about the problem?
Risk register and heat map
List risks; score likelihood and impact from one to five; plot them. For high risks, choose to reduce, transfer (for example, insure), avoid or accept — and assign an owner.
ToolWhat can they use?
Risk registerTemplate
- Risk description
- Likelihood and impact
- Current controls
- Mitigation, owner and date
- Review frequency
ApplicationHow does it apply to their business?
Apply it to your own business:
- List your ten biggest risks
- Score and plot them
- Assign owners for the top three
ImplementationWhat changes?
What should change in the business:
- Put mitigations in place for top risks
- Review the register quarterly
- Report key risks to the board or owners
ReviewDid it work?
How to tell whether the change worked:
- Have top risks reduced in score?
- Are owners completing mitigations?
- Was any incident anticipated by the register?
After this module you should be able to decide
Accept concentration for efficiency, or pay for diversification?
And leave with: A risk register with owners and mitigations for your top risks.
Sequence · Strategy & Growth