By Khalifa Hemed
Published April 1, 2022
Business interruption, political risks and violence and pandemic outbreak are the top three Kenyan business risks in 2022 according to a survey by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty.
The 11th Allianz Risk Barometer 2022 shows that political risks and violence and changes in legislation and regulation are rising concerns for businesses in Kenya. Political risks and violence is a new risk at number two owing to known and documented police brutality in the country, according to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2021. Changes in legislation and regulation moves up five places to fourth in the country.
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“Fortunately, large scale terrorism events have declined drastically in the last five years. However, the number, scale and duration of riots and protests in the last two years is staggering and we have seen businesses suffering significant losses,” says Bjoern Reusswig, Head of Global Political Violence and Hostile Environment Solutions at AGCS. “Civil unrest has soared, driven by protests on issues ranging from economic hardship to police brutality which have affected citizens around the world. And the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is making things worse – with little sign of an end to the economic downturn in sight, the number of protests is likely to continue climbing.”
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“Preparation is key – in particular for exposed sectors such as retail,” explains Thusang Mahlangu AGCS Africa CEO. “Businesses need to review their business continuity plans (BCP) and should be aware of what is happening around them. Typically, these only focus on national catastrophes, but there is a need for BCP plans to address political disturbances and other types of business disruption like cyber. Having defined, and preferably tested, procedures in place is crucial – these should include staff, client and general communication and social media plans. It is imperative for companies to think deeply about how they can best protect their assets and people.”
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Cyber incidents ranks as a fifth top peril in Kenya. The main driver is the recent surge in ransomware attacks, which are confirmed as the top cyber threat for the year ahead by survey respondents (57%). Recent attacks have shown worrying trends such as ‘double extortion’ tactics combining the encryption of systems with data breaches; exploiting software vulnerabilities which potentially affect thousands of companies or targeting physical critical infrastructure. Cyber security also ranks as companies’ major environmental, social and governance (ESG) concern with respondents acknowledging the need to build resilience and plan for future outages or face the growing consequences from regulators, investors, and other stakeholders.
“Ransomware has become a big business for cyber criminals, who are refining their tactics, lowering the barriers to entry for as little as a $40 subscription and little technological knowledge. The commercialization of cyber crime makes it easier to exploit vulnerabilities on a massive scale. We will see more attacks against technology supply chains and critical infrastructure,” explains Scott Sayce, Global Head of Cyber at AGCS.
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In a year marked by widespread disruption, the extent of vulnerabilities in modern supply chains and production networks is more obvious than ever. According to the survey, the most feared cause of BI is cyber incidents, reflecting the rise in ransomware attacks but also the impact of companies’ growing reliance on digitalization and the shift to remote working.
“The pandemic has exposed the extent of interconnectivity in modern supply chains and how multiple unrelated events can come together to create widespread disruption. For the first time the resilience of supply chains has been tested to breaking point on a global scale,” says Philip Beblo, Property Industry Lead, Technology, Media, and Telecoms, at AGCS.
Awareness of BI risks is becoming an important strategic issue across entire companies. “There is a growing willingness among top management to bring more transparency to supply chains with organizations investing in tools and working with data to better understand the risks and create inventories, redundancies and contingency plans for business continuity,” says Maarten van der Zwaag, Global Head of Property Risk Consulting at AGCS.