Deloitte Ranks Social Media Among Top Risks

By Kalen Smith, Big4 Blogger

A new Deloitte survey has found that social media has become of the biggest threats to businesses. Many firms have not implemented policies to prevent the risks social media creates.

The report by Deloitte and Forbes Insights found that 27% of executives feel social media is a growing concern for their businesses. Although only a quarter of them have implemented policies to manage risk, they are taking new steps to deal with it in the coming year.

Henry Ristuccia is one of the leaders of Deloitte’s Governance and Risk Management services. Ristuccia said that employers seem to be discouraged from investing considerable resources in addressing risk management policies. However, they recognize their position is going to need to change as technology and government regulations create greater challenges for them in the coming years.

Mark Carey, leader of Deloitte’s U.S. Governance and Risk Strategies division said that technology will play an instrumental role in dealing with these challenges. However, companies need to be thoroughly educated on these threats and how they can utilize technology to mitigate them.

Businesses do realize the need to reform their risk management practices. Over half of the companies involved in the study said they expect to improve those practices in the next year and almost all said they will make these changes by 2015. However, they may need some feedback on the best approaches to solve these challenges.