Risk services: converting expertise into impact

Kapish Vanvaria, EY Global and Americas Risk Consulting Leader, caught up with Emma Carroll, Head of Content at Source, on the latest episode of our The Future of the Firm podcast.  

Kapish shared his insights on the following matters and more:    

• There have been some big changes in risk services in recent years, including technology innovation, the impact of regulatory changes, and an evolution of client expectations—in particular, clients wanting more sector-specific and personalised solutions.  

• The sweet spot for risk experts lies in offering strong domain expertise—for instance, top tier talent in regulatory compliance—and marrying that up with deep sector knowledge, while supporting this with insights from other industries as well.  

• To really solve business problems for clients, it often involves more than just consulting. Audit, legal, industry experts, and technology experts all need to have a seat at the table, and firms should look at creating shared KPIs to encourage this collaboration.  

• When bringing solutions to clients, firms should be using themselves as client zero, and working on the concept of ‘proof, not promises’. Testing solutions within the firm itself and showing its successes brings credibility to the offering.  

• When choosing which firms to shortlist, clients are most concerned about expertise, but an ability to implement is close behind. Firms can translate their expertise into implementation by never being afraid to fail and by going through the iterative process of finding what doesn’t work to lead you to what does.  

• Firms are starting to supplement their workforce with digital FTEs. Beyond improving quality and reducing costs, this also allows work for be carried out more quickly. People become reviewers rather than doers and have more time to thrive as individuals.   

If you enjoyed this conversation, don’t miss our sister podcast, Business Leader’s Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Francine Bennett, Board Member at the Ada Lovelace Institute, about solving business problems with AI.