There is a certain level of risk associated with every aspect of life. Some things are riskier than others. Jumping out of a plane puts you in more danger than making yourself some toast in the morning —unless in the unlikely event that you happen to live with a homicidal toaster, right? You can look up all the information on your own about how many people die in skydiving accidents every year versus how many die making toast. But you don’t have to — we’ll give you the answer to that question, but, ultimately, what will that information tell you and how will knowing the answer change your behavior?
LogicGate is a company that looks at risk fundamentally different from most others. According to Gina Hortatsos, the CMO of LogicGate, risk management should not be fear-driven – in fact, the company considers risk as a strategic advantage. How does LogicGate turn risk on its head in a way that makes it something that its customers not only feel comfortable with but actually leverage to do great things? Find out on Business X factors.
Main Takeaways:
- Knowledge Reduces Fear: Fear of failure stalks the business world and fear is not only a specter for entrepreneurs, even success can provoke anxiety. Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Chobani said he was afraid every day while building his multibillion-dollar business because if he failed so many lives would have been affected. A powerful antidote for the fear of failure is increasing one’s capabilities, seeking support, being willing to pivot, gathering knowledge and undertaking research to know the actual risk you are facing.
- Whack-a-mole Is Not a Risk Strategy: Vulnerability and risk management have traditionally been treated as a whack-a-mole game with managers addressing problems as they emerge. With senior management under ever more pressure to demonstrate compliance and make risk-sensitive decisions, it is important that senior management know where the moles are without having to ask. To do that, capture key regulatory risk metrics, monitor appropriate data and adopt risk metrics across the business. Make sure that you have a persistent view of risk levels that is accessible to all the relevant managers.
- Mix Passions: We are often told that a “jack of all trades is a master of none,” meaning you should concentrate on that one thing you are good at or passionate about. You could in fact merge two divergent passions into one and trailblaze a new path. Some of your soft skills or your passion for something unusual could lead to a new career or business.
Key Quotes:
“An astronaut named Chris Hadfield…. his famous quote is, ‘the more, you know, the less you fear.’ So the prospect of going into space, sending a human being into space is so full of risk. Why would anybody do it? What his talk track is on that is he depended on a whole team of professionals who understood at every level of abstraction across the entire journey there and back what the risks were and understood how to mitigate, understood how to prevent, understood when to accept certain risks, so that when he was shot up into space, he felt confident that the risk-reward quotient was something that he was comfortable with, the more, you know, the less you fear.”
“My path started with understanding how to ask the right questions, to understand what motivates people, understand how they make decisions, understand what makes them more likely to choose one product or service over another product and service. And I became fascinated with this notion of quantitatively calculating what gives that customer, you know, the preference of one company versus another.”
“While the risk management category may not be the flashiest thing, it is an absolute mission-critical element and technology for businesses to run properly. So that is really exciting to me. The other thing was that fundamental way in which we were looking differently at the market, how do we help customers? How do we help companies view risk in a different way? How do we use, how do we use the, the, the, the software offering that we built and, and provide to our customers in a way that allows companies to actually look at the risk management function as a revenue generator, not a cost center, you know, you have these risk management people on staff and they’re playing whack-a-mole all day.”
“We have to show up every day trying to figure out how to make the customers choose us, even the customers we already have. We fundamentally view risk differently, always incorporating that into our talk tracks with our customers, even if they came to us to solve one little thing… Of course we can help you become compliant… without having to spend millions of dollars on the consultant. Of course, we can do that. And let’s talk about how we will help you land the next big customer. And what’s next for you?”
“Oftentimes we come in when companies simply can’t take it anymore, either because they’re trying to run very important mission-critical and time-based risk programs of antiquated technology. Like the equivalent of Lotus notes, I guess, or because they’re still trying to patch where it gets together with emails or spreadsheets.”
“It used to be people saying, ‘You’ll take my macro spreadsheets out of my cold dead hands. I love my spreadsheets.’ And finally, the tide turned and a lot of players, you know, a lot of big technology players made financial planning analysis scenario modeling a lot more nimble, a lot more agile, a lot more rich with scenario modeling through technology. And finally, we were able to wrest some of those heavily macro based spreadsheets from those cold dead hands.
“From the very beginning, we have viewed risk very differently, that risk reward, yin yang. We look at it holistically. We don’t look at it as, stamp out all risks at all cost. The best companies were built off taking smart risks. And that’s why we exist to help companies take better, smarter, more strategic risks that drive more profitability, customer loyalty, whatever it is. And we feel passionately that the only way to do that is by applying modern technology to solve a lot of these old problems.”
Bio:
As Chief Marketing Officer, Gina brings more than 20 years of enterprise software marketing experience to LogicGate. Prior to LogicGate, Gina served as VP of Marketing at FourKites, Inc., where she built and scaled the Marketing function. As AVP, Global Marketing at Hyland, Gina oversaw global programs, field marketing, operations, events, and demand center. Outside of the office, Gina loves to cook, travel, and read…but most of her spare time is spent driving her kids to various practices and games. She lives in Chicago with her husband Mike and their three sons.
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