DuPont Sustainable Solutions (DSS), Wilmington, Del., announced results from its first annual Global Operational Risk Management Survey, which found that more than one-third of business executives surveyed believe their company has very significant or even critical gaps in their operational risk management processes. These results suggest that many executives are facing challenges to identify the most important risks in their operations and lack adequate systems in their companies to address risk.

The objectives of the DSS survey were to benchmark and measure the maturity of operational risk management (ORM) in organizations across industries and to examine the challenges organizations face in managing risk.

“Though one-third of executives believe there are significant gaps in their ORM processes, the good news is executives overwhelmingly understand the importance of leadership and culture in effectively reducing risk,” says Davide Vassallo, global managing director. “More than 90% of executives felt leadership commitment and accountability were important to reducing operational risk, and more than 80% of executives felt organizational culture was important.”

Over 60% of the survey respondents were at the executive director level or above in companies with global operations. The companies represented had approximately $300 billion in annual revenue in a wide variety of high hazard industries, including oil and gas, mining and metals, utilities, chemical and petrochemical, transportation, manufacturing, services, building and construction and food and beverage.