Working on an exam case study. A mining company is undergoing a strategic review with three options on the table: financial growth, operational efficiency, or sustainability leadership, but hasn’t chosen yet. Separately, management has identified 12 risk areas (tailings, community conflict, environmental compliance, commodity volatility, climate transition, etc.).
I’m advising the Chief Risk Officer. The exam asks me to (a) build a risk map of the 12 risks, and (b) propose up to 6 indicators (KPIs and KRIs) and assess whether management’s risk concerns are evidence-based using a dataset.
My plan is not to pick a strategy, because:
1. The case doesn’t ask me to, strategy choice is the board’s deliberation, not mine
2. The case gives three corporate-level objectives that hold across all three strategies (competitiveness, stakeholder confidence, long-term growth) which can anchor risk identification
3. Some risks are strategy-invariant (tailings breach is catastrophic under any strategy); others vary according to the strategy
4. Picking a strategy would require inventing justification the case doesn’t support (also, I’m advising the risk team)
Is this defensible, or am I dodging the strategy question in a way that breaks ERM logic?
Thank you in advance, you can probably tell I’m desperate and frankly very confused.