Managing risk for any sizeable company is a complex business but it’s especially complicated in an airport setting. Airports have many dangerous live environments, a high turnover of people going through, and numerous third parties at work – all of which make the job of managing risk a difficult but essential task.
AGS airports transformed the way they manage risk across the group’s three airports – Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton – with the help of Lion & Gazelle. Lion & Gazelle designed and delivered a bespoke Risk Management app in line with the needs of the group. We spoke to Gillies Crichton, Assurance Director at AGS Airports, who provided his insight into how the app works and how it has transformed the efforts of managing risk in the business.
A Dated System
“Traditionally, the spreadsheet has long been the friend of assurance professionals,” said Gillies, “and that was certainly the backbone of our risk operation at AGS Airports, before the app.”
The Risk Register is the bread and butter of assurance. But a system based on spreadsheets is now dated compared with what new technology offers. In a discipline where responsibility, accountability, and transparency are crucial, multiple people accessing a series of saved documents on a shared drive leaves ample room for error. On top of that, it relies on each responsible party to faithfully input information accurately, and in real-time.
At board level, the Assurance Director needs to be able to report easily and quickly on the risk position of the group; at corporate level, airport level, business function level, and department level. There are also reporting requirements for governing bodies like the CAA - periodical and ad-hoc – and navigating an abundance of spreadsheets on each occasion is a time-consuming necessity that doesn’t yield the best results. Gillies continued:
“Everyone involved in the legacy risk management efforts at AGS airports was dedicated to the process and providing the right information. However, we were aware that the system was laborious, inaccessible for everyone and not particularly good at preserving historic data or input information – we needed to overhaul the system entirely.
Knowing that a big part of the problem was the lack of appropriate tools, we sought the expertise of Lion & Gazelle to help. I wanted a new system that would make it easier for various parties to input the necessary detail, that would allow open and transparent information sharing across the group, and that would make it easy for senior members of the team to withdraw required information in real-time. Armed with this knowledge, Lion & Gazelle got to work creating us something that would do all of the above.”
Introducing The App
The aim of the app is to help AGS Group to better and more accurately identify and assess potential risks across the business and make decisions based on severity and likelihood.
The App is accessible on mobile and desktop devices, to make the inputting of information as simple as possible. Upon opening the application, each individual is presented with a bespoke list of risks that are relevant to them. Elsewhere in the app, users can search the database of all known risks, past and present, across the wider group. This ensures information and learnings are accessible to all for continuous improvement.
Against each risk, the resultant consequences are listed, as well as a list of mitigations balanced against key group objectives such as customer satisfaction, safety, and service provision. The scoring system was revisited in advance of the app being built, meaning each risk is now scored across a number of areas: Health & Safety, Security, Environment, Reputational Damage, Regulatory Compliance, Operational and Financial & Commercial. The app then aggregates these scores to provide a score for each airport, department and service area – which is useful for senior Risk Managers to get a clear picture of risk across the business.
As well as handling the data itself, the app allows for better management of mitigations across the teams. Actions can be allocated to people, who will then be notified of said action and the associated timescales which are tracked to completion – encouraging active ownership of responsibilities across the board.
As well as this, the app has given AGS Group the power to hold a quarterly review at departmental level, business unit level, and executive committee level; ensuring risk owners’ accountability of their risks and effectively improving the efficiency and ease of checks and governance.
Gillies commented: “We had about a year of testing the app across various business areas and have been using the finished version for almost two years now. It has completely revolutionised how risk is managed across the group.
Yes – we are reaping all the commercial benefits, like increased efficiency, time freed up across our teams, and the cost associated with that time – but there is one huge advantage that I recognise as Assurance Director. We now have a clear, living, overview of risk across the business. And with this information, we are now proactively managing down risk and continually improving. It’s been nothing less than transformative.”
Designed by specialists
Lion & Gazelle’s Aviation specialists have designed and implemented tools for a variety of disciplines in Airside Management – including Risk, Airside Incident Reporting, Safety Tours and even Crane Permits. The tools are designed using MS Office 365 PowerApps, a Microsoft package which is often included in a company’s overarching Microsoft subscription. Put simply, it’s a tool that can automate manual processes, things that are usually based in an Excel spreadsheet and where users have to email notifications, reminders, and chasers.
This is important – because it’s for this reason that it can take as little as days or weeks to have the App in place. It’s a quick and low cost way to transform parts of your business and free up resources. Lion & Gazelle are also specialists in Business Transformation and Process Improvement, meaning the team can support with identifying areas that can be streamlined.
Gillies concluded:
“By working with Lion & Gazelle we have vastly improved the management of risk within our business. We worked collaboratively to design and deliver the app that was right for us. The app easily collates the information we need from all stakeholders, maps interdependencies, and provides us with data-based conclusions that we need to make informed decisions. The app's design has been tailored precisely to our business needs and our improved risk function across the group is testament to its success.”
To discuss how we can support and revolutionise risk management in your business, get in touch with our team at info@lionandgazelle.com.
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