The biggest threats facing companies all over the world
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. So we covered domestic economic challenges before the break. Now let's turn to the biggest threats facing companies all over the world. Needless to say, cyber threats topped the poll for major international companies as the biggest source of threats. That's followed by a global economic slowdown and potential regulatory or legislative changes coming down the tracks. The global risk survey is carried out by the professional services company Aon and Rachel Ingle is the chief executive of Aon Ireland and is on the line. Good morning, Rachel. Good morning, Joe. Now, Rachel, cyber risks are not a shock, but economic slowdown and regulatory changes being second and third biggest threats surprised me.
Well, economic slowdown is slightly higher in Ireland than the results for the globe or Europe. And I suppose that might reflect how global trade tensions and protectionist policies ripple into Ireland's open export driven economy, as was talked about by your previous contributor.
What are the biggest threats facing companies globally?
And regulatory and legislative changes, they've gone up four places to number three this year. That's higher than in Europe or globally. And that's probably something to do with Irish businesses adapting to new regulations coming in.
Why are cyber risks considered the top threat?
From a workforce perspective, that includes the EU pay transparency requirements, auto enrolment, which is very topical this year for Ireland, and also from a digital, EU digital regulation that's coming in like NIS 2 and DORA. So not as surprising as you might think for both of those to be in the top three. As you said, cyber is number one globally, number one Europe and number one in Ireland. as the risk that lots of companies are grappling with. And that, as I suppose you know, is driven by the rise of AI-powered attacks and our growing reliance on digital infrastructure. You know, recent cyber incidents in Ireland's healthcare and aviation sectors, they didn't just impact data, they disrupted essential services and public confidence and also critically had financial implications for many industries.
And sometimes it costs an awful lot of money for companies to mitigate cyber risks. Geopolitical risk wasn't a big issue two years ago, but it's in the top 10 this year. And I just wonder, is that fear of Russian attacks or Donald Trump and his wayward trade policies?
Well, we could probably put all of those into the mix, but what's really interesting with that particular risk that's in the top 10 globally, European and locally, That's the first time in 20 years that that has appeared in our survey. So that's a really interesting stat. But as one of my colleagues says, the idea that you could be immune from geopolitical tension is long gone. So whatever's going on in another part of the world will eventually impact your business in some form. And I think that's a really important thing for everybody to consider as they try and grapple with that geopolitical risk that's out there.
Yeah, and nearly half have seen a financial impact due to geopolitics. Tell us more.
Yeah, well, this is it, because geopolitics, if you think about it, it isn't just thinking about the war in Ukraine. If you think about how Poland reacted to Belarus having conversations to Russia and imports from China, 25 billion, I think it is globally. being restricted to move through Poland to get into the European Union. That in itself, so that global political tension has impacted on supply chain and caused prices to increase for a lot of organizations for some of the products that were required in their own industries. So that's what I'm saying, that things that happen far away are actually impacting financially the bottom line of a lot of firms.
Yeah, you mentioned AI. Are you guys seeing still hiring young graduates or have you seen any impact of AI on entry level jobs?
I think what we're seeing with AI is that it's not going away and it's a really important part of growth for the future for many organizations. And we're certainly trying to see in Aon how we better use our early career colleagues to use AI to benefit students.
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