Integrating Business Management Processes

Chapter 4

Risk Management

4.1 Introduction

Inhabitants of our planet at various times have been exposed to natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, famine, drought, etc. It is widely believed that the extinction of the dinosaurs was due to the massive impact of an asteroid on earth. In more recent times, the south-east Asian tsunami affected 13 countries and killed nearly 250,000 people (BBC, 2014). The 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland disrupted millions of air travellers and affected time-sensitive air shipments (Chopra & Sodhi, 2014). Although modern technology enables the prediction of some of these events, their potential impact cannot be estimated accurately. Businesses are also not immune to such natural disasters. ...