2021: When knowing the risk was no longer enough

In 2021, leaders were no longer being caught out only by unknown risks. Many disruptive events had been visible long before their impacts materialised. Pandemic disruption, cyber disruption, supply chain pressures and climate-related challenges were already established concerns. Yet many leaders and decision-makers continued to be surprised by how quickly these risks could become material and how widely their effects could spread.

This raised an important question: if leaders can already identify many of the risks facing their businesses, why do they still struggle to understand them and take action?

The Willis Research Network’s 2021 Emerging Risks Survey explored that challenge by examining where greater understanding was needed. Its aim was not to lengthen the risk list, but to deepen understanding of risks that executives could already identify but had yet to fully grasp.

What the survey revealed

The survey brought together 144 insurance and corporate executives, academic researchers and policy makers. It asked which emerging risks were most underappreciated and most in need of greater understanding.

The survey identified climate change, cyber risk, supply chain disruption, demographic change and antimicrobial resistance among the areas where respondents believed greater understanding was needed. The significance of the findings lay less in the ranking itself than in the fact that these were already well-recognised risks. The challenge was understanding how they could evolve, how assumptions might fail and how developments in one area could amplify pressures elsewhere.

Few of these risks were hidden. Many already featured in board discussions, risk assessments and public debate. The findings pointed instead to gaps in understanding: how risks could evolve, which assumptions might fail, how quickly impacts could become material and how developments in one area could amplify pressures elsewhere.

Participants also highlighted incomplete evidence, evolving models and connections between risks that were not yet well understood. The findings reinforced the value of bringing together expertise from different disciplines, sectors and geographies when problems extend beyond traditional organisational boundaries.

Turning insight into resilience planning

The survey provided a structured way to challenge assumptions and explore uncertainty before disruption occurred. This thinking was later reflected in Yorkshire Water’s Interconnected Risk Review, which this utility company described as a repeatable and quantifiable way to capture risk interconnections and identify future risks.

The review combined data-driven risk modelling with informed challenge from external expert perspectives, revealing unseen co-dependencies, exposures and opportunities.

It supported better-informed scenarios to test medium- and longer-term resilience. Yorkshire Water used these scenarios in its FY23 long-term viability assessment and incorporated them into longer-term delivery strategy and adaptive decision-making.

Why this matters now

Climate, technology, geopolitics, demographics and supply chains continue to reshape operating environments. The challenge identified in 2021 has become more pronounced as organisations face multiple sources of uncertainty simultaneously, often with incomplete evidence and limited time to respond. AI adoption, geopolitical fragmentation, climate-related disruption and growing infrastructure pressures are creating new dependencies and exposing longstanding assumptions. 

For executives and boards, the question is increasingly not whether a risk exists but what it means for decisions being made today. This requires leaders to distinguish relevant signals from background noise, test the assumptions underpinning strategy and determine when uncertainty has become significant enough to justify action.

The 2024 Emerging and Interconnected Risks Survey provided further evidence of this challenge. Drawing on 333 respondents across 55 countries, the survey found that around half were confident their organisation’s approach enabled it to respond to today’s risk environment. Only 23% believed their organisation would be able to respond adequately to risks that might emerge over the next decade.

From identifying risks to preparing for uncertainty

This confidence gap highlights the need for decision-makers to assess more than individual risks. They need to understand dependencies, potential cascading effects and the consequences that decisions in one area can create elsewhere. Many risks shaping the coming decade will cross established categories of ownership and expertise.

The 2024 Survey developed the approach established in 2021 by examining risks across different time horizons and the relationships between them. Throughout its history, the WRN has combined evidence from risk surveys with forward-looking research, scenarios and expert insight. Together, these perspectives help organisations understand not only what concerns leaders today, but how changing assumptions, emerging signals and interconnected dependencies could shape future decisions. The same themes underpin the Willis Research Network’s forthcoming 20-year flagship report, which explores how leaders can recognise changing assumptions, understand shared dependencies and act while credible options remain available.

The practical priorities remain consistent: look beyond rankings and risk lists, examine the assumptions behind known risks, identify connections that could alter their impact and bring together the expertise needed to inform decisions before uncertainty becomes disruption.

The advantage does not come from identifying every risk in a risk register. It comes from recognising when an assumption has weakened, understanding what depends on it and changing decisions while credible options remain.