Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) can mean different things for different companies—some want to gain established processes to conduct risk control assessments, and others want to have integrated dashboard tools for real-time risk reporting. Whatever may be the requirement, ERM places a greater demand on enterprises for transparency in carrying information across all the players—from employees to management. However, gaining information transparency is easier said than done.

“The reporting teams are often scattered across multiple departments, separate offices, and different countries, and yet they need to work as a single group on reports that can contain thousands of pages,” says Matt Rizai Chairman and CEO of Workiva. “Also, ensuring information consistency across resolution and recovery plans, comprehensive capital review and analysis reports, and stress tests can be a time-consuming task.”

Alleviating these challenges is Workiva, based in Ames, IA. The company’s cloud-based reporting solution, Wdesk, helps risk-reporting teams gain desired transparency by providing information about the tasks each of the team members are working on and how the overall process is being manifested.

Wdesk is based on the single-document data model technology that allows teams to collaborate on documents in real time. “It provides great value because all the data can be linked from the single source to maintain information consistency and avoid confusion,” remarks Rizai. Any time the linked data is changed, it gets automatically updated across all the occurrences in real time— in Wdesk documents, spreadsheets, and presentations—reducing errors and increasing efficiency. This keeps the information always up-to-date, no matter where it's used.

Wdesk enables each team member to work simultaneously on his or her own section of the document, eliminating the need for confusing email interactions. It also allows them to write comments and have the running document history about any previous changes that were made.