 Murray & Roberts has developed an enterprise risk
management process to implement the group risk
framework which has been rolled out to all operating
company boards and executive committees. The
process is applied in all areas of potential exposure to
risk, including acquisitions, projects, health, safety &
environment management, and brand integrity.
Risk assessments are conducted at an operational level
as part of a three year business planning process, and at
a project level as part of bid preparation. Knowledge
bases, case studies and the collective group experience
are leveraged to better understand potential exposures
to threats and opportunities.
Opportunity management relates to decision making
which changes the Group's risk profile. Acquisitions are
subject to rigorous due diligence studies before approval.
Capital expenditure requirements for organic growth are
assessed as part of business planning. Engagement
of project opportunities is controlled through the
opportunity management system (OMS). Significant risk
decisions are first reviewed by the executive risk committee
and then submitted to the Murray & Roberts Board.
Risk mitigation promotes the proactive management of risk once it has been brought into
the Group. This involves accountability, planning and resource allocation, ongoing review and
communication with affected stakeholders.
Risk based audit is a structured program to test the effectiveness of controls mitigating
significant risk exposure. Group internal audit is deploying control self assessment as an
efficient means of establishing the effectiveness of standard financial controls. The outcomes
of business plan risk assessments and mitigation planning are used to develop focused audit
plans to investigate significant risk bearing controls. This is supported by internal audit within
the operations and peer review by experienced corporate executives.
Murray & Roberts has a long and proud record of major project delivery. The Group is
responsible for constructing much of the built environment in southern Africa and has been
involved in some of the world's great engineering challenges. In recent years it has entered a
new era characterised by major projects with potentially high risk profiles.
Murray & Roberts has developed the capacity to better assess and manage these projects.
The bespoke OMS controls the project approval process such that all opportunities entered
into the tender process are evaluated against a selection of pre-determined criteria.
A scorecard approach allows management to determine the potential risk profile in a project,
which projects can proceed normally, which must be declined and which can proceed only
under more rigorous conditions. In this latter circumstance, a steering committee monitors
each project through to final account.
Unitary Murray & Roberts enables the Group to exploit
unique synergies in its various operations and engage
major projects with collective strength. This approach
has leveraged our ability to compete for some of the
world's most challenging projects.
To capitalise on the potential for the OMS to promote
the unitary goal and embed it as a business
management tool, version 2.0 of the system has been
developed and deployed. The OMS is now a group-wide
decision support and workflow management system,
covering the project lifecycle from the time a lead is
identified in the market, through business development,
decision to bid, bid preparation, contract negotiation,
and residual exposures post-implementation.
Globalising Murray & Roberts benchmarks our
leadership and systems capacity against the status of
best-in-class from the global engineering and
construction sector. We continue to transform our
operations, positioning them to offer superior
propositions to their markets. Our leadership capacity
has been strengthened to capitalise on a robust
construction economy.
We have implemented an enterprise resource planning
financial management and consolidation system across
the Group's project cluster to leverage synergies and
ensure consistent project delivery.
The accepted international definition of a major project
is one which exceeds the inherent capacity of an
organisation to manage it within its own resource and
capacity. Partnership is a strategic imperative for
the Group and we select our partners against criteria
including market knowledge or technological expertise.
The building and maintenance of strong relationships
with major clients in key growth sectors is reflected in
the order book, where much of the work secured is
repeat business.
As an organisation Murray & Roberts confidently seeks
out risk, in order to capitalise on its ability to benefit from
its inherent opportunities. To achieve this, there is a
need to coordinate and leverage the substantial
resources existing within the organisation in order to
improve the effectiveness of group risk management.
Additional information on risk management and major projects
undertaken by Murray & Roberts is available on the group
website at www.murrob.com. |
