Future Age: Enterprise Risk Management at Companies’ Service

Close to companies to strategically address risk management and the uncertainty of competitive scenarios. Especially in the days of Covid-19

by Roberto Guccione

Making customers’ future safer, with a governance of competitive and non-competitive threats which affect their operations: this is the mission of Future Age, a Brescia-based entrepreneurial concern operating in the field of risk management which, since 2016, has been working alongside companies, helping them to preserve business continuity and identify the opportunities generated by a correct and proactive risk management activity.
“In recent years, the interest of companies in risk management issues has grown considerably, since in the course of their activities every company is subject to a series of threats which affect their operations and therefore their ability to generate value,” Paolo Borghetti, founder and CEO of Future Age, explained.

Uncertainty represents both a risk and an opportunity and can potentially reduce or increase the value of the company. “Future Age”, Borghetti continued, “proposes an integrated risk management process (ERM, Enterprise Risk Management) which helps management and the Board of Directors to make decisions compatible with the company’s risk profile and consistent with corporate objectives. Our approach is to establish long-term relationships with our customers, encouraging a transfer of know-how and also participating in risk: an important component of our compensation is linked to the achievement of expected results”.

Managing the risks of the aluminium supply chain

Future Age is specialized in risk management of companies linked to the aluminium supply chain, so much so that 60% of its customers are refiners, manufacturers of die castings , die casting moulds, manufacturers of light alloy components and extruders.
This is an industrial sector characterized by the need to improve process efficiency and product quality (even in terms of traceability), maintaining a high attention to environmental aspects and applying the logic of circular economy. A context where Future Age applies an ERM approach to risks which involves activities along the entire supply chain:
Audits of strategic suppliers and their evaluation through specific vendor’s ratings;
Process mapping with identification of the company’s critical issues and related remediation plan;
Targeted presentations for the company’s customers to illustrate the development of the ERM function within the company;
Development of the business continuity plan;
Calculation of the MAO (Maximum Acceptable Outage) for each customer, that is, the maximum acceptable time of interruption of supplies due to an adverse event;
Development and implementation of crisis management plans regarding the “black swans” that may affect the company.

During the current crisis linked to Covid-19, Future Age worked alongside 27 companies in Brescia mitigating the impact of the emergency and in the past it managed company crises due to radioactive environmental pollution, earthquakes, fires and loss of key figures within the company.
Effective risk management is particularly important for companies in the automotive sector, which are very numerous in the aluminium supply chain. The IATF (International automotive task force) certification envisages risk management in companies, through the use of the FMEA technique, since the 1990s. Today, for automotive suppliers, the development of the ERP function is an important element to confirm the reliability and resilience of the company.