On 10 November, the great and the good from the risk management community gathered at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms for the Risk Management Awards, where Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, and Aon, a leading global professional services firm providing risk, retirement and health solutions, took home the product of the year award for their Brexit Barometer risk diagnostic.
Now in its ninth year, the Risk Management Awards recognises those individuals, organisations and teams that have significantly added to the understanding and practice of risk management. This year’s event was hosted by stand-up comedian Phil Wang, who presented Shane Hamill, Overseas Trade Manager at Bord Bia and Ciara Jackson, Food & Agribusiness Practice Leader at Aon with their award.
The Brexit Barometer is a comprehensive survey completed by 117 Irish food, drink and horticulture companies. It questioned participants on Brexit readiness, focussing on six key issues facing the sector: UK Customer Relationships, Supply Chain, Customs and Tariffs, Financial Resilience, Marketing Diversification and Emerging Risks.
A panel of expert judges praised the Brexit Barometer for its assessment of the Irish food, drink and horticultural sectors’ readiness for the UK’s exit from the European Union and its ability to provide factual information on the appropriate actions for businesses.
Shane Hamill, Overseas Trade Manager at Bord Bia, added: “We’re delighted to have won this award in partnership with Aon. We are also very grateful for the time given by the Irish food and drink companies who took part in the Barometer.
'Brexit is the most significant challenge our industry has faced in modern times. A combination of detailed data, complemented by deep industry insight, and world class analytics platforms, have enabled us to truly understand the risk environment that the Irish food, drink and horticulture sector is navigating.”
Ciara Jackson, Food & Agribusiness Practice Leader at Aon, added, “Aon is delighted to have worked with Bord Bia to develop Brexit Barometer, a risk diagnostic tool designed to assess the exposure of Bord Bia’s clients to Brexit across six key areas.
'By leveraging our industry insight, enterprise risk management expertise and data & analytics capability, we were able to create a Brexit Barometer that provides a range of practical tools to help Bord Bia’s clients to identify, quantify, manage and where possible mitigate Brexit risk.”