Nationwide Broadens BI to the Enterprise

Cary, N. C. - Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. is bolstering its enterprise risk management (ERM) program with the implementation of business intelligence from SAS, the companies report.

An SAS customer for 27 years, Nationwide plans to integrate risk and control self-assessment processes across its various business units and functional areas. The Columbus-based provider of personal lines insurance, investment and banking services intends to leverage this integration to better share information, coordinate risk management coverage and increase alignment between and amongst its partner programs.

"One of the goals of enterprise risk management is to enable a portfolio or enterprise-level view of a company's risk profile. For large organizations, operational risks can be a particularly challenging part of that profile to effectively identify, assess, measure, and manage," says Mike Mahaffey, Nationwide's VP of Enterprise Risk Management. "Many operational risks can exist across an enterprise, often making them the shared responsibility of dispersed risk managers."

Nationwide plans to use OpRisk Management from SAS, Cary, N.C., across risk management programs to further enhance and integrate the company's ERM capabilities.

OpRisk Management, which includes data management, analytics and regulatory reporting and disclosure capabilities, provides a standardized way to collect, measure and report data from multiple risk management programs, such as internal audit, compliance, legal and information risk management, among others, adds Mahaffey. This lends itself to leveraging the product across the enterprise.

"Although SAS OpRisk Management focuses primarily on operational risk, we believe it can effectively support other risk types as well. This flexibility, coupled with leading data management capabilities and superior analytics, provides us with a powerful ERM tool," says Nationwide Enterprise Risk Management senior consultant Allan Dudek. "Ensuring that risk information is commonly understood and effectively shared via our common risk information architecture (as implemented in SAS) helps Nationwide to make more informed enterprise-level risk decisions, and ultimately drives better value creation. Long-term value creation is the primary goal of Nationwide's investment in ERM, and our partnership with SAS is an important part of realizing that goal."

Source: SAS

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