EtQ, Inc
Curtailing Risks through Visibility and Control

Meeting compliance needs is getting tougher in modern times, where business operations are becoming increasingly complex while competition is soaring. To this end, organizations need tools that can assess the risk involved in the operations and suggest preventive actions before the damage is done. Building on the trend of quantitative operational risk management and assessment, EtQ is a compliance management software firm that uses risk as the benchmark for compliance in the business operations. “EtQ’s risk management technology provides a method for identifying the hazards faced in an organization, and builds quantitative tools to assess those hazards and build risk ranking,” says Morgan Palmer, CTO.

To deliver visibility and control in compliance management, EtQ provides systematic and objective means of building risk into various processes. By using quantitative risk tools such as Risk matrices, Hazard analyses, Decision trees, Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Bow Tie Risk modeling, EtQ not only identifies the risks, but also ranks them according to their severity level and suggests recommended actions to avoid their occurrence. Visibility is enabled through advanced analytics, risk trending, and reporting that helps in detection, correction, and continuous improvement of high-risk events. These tools guide the risk management teams to take corrective actions to meet compliance requirements.

“The key is in knowing where your risks are at a higher level in the organization and the Risk Register has been designed to achieve this,” according to Palmer. The risk register, stored in a centralized location, helps in reviewing the risk trajectory over a period of time. Businesses can use the Risk Register to review and analyze the trend in high-risk events and take preventive actions. It is a library of hazards that takes risk data from events such as operations, quality, finance, IT, and safety.

Through FMEA, EtQ helps clients to perform component-level check to identify potential failures in the product design before it enters production.

EtQ’s risk management technology provides a method for identifying the hazards faced in an organization

EtQ implements a BowTie Risk modeling tool to assess risks that are not yet discovered and which may affect the business in the form of product recall or even worse.

In one such incident, a major medical manufacturer had a stream of complaints coming to their system. From minor to potentially critical, the complaints were in various degree of severity. With no means for quantifying the complaints, the company used dates as the prioritization criteria as they had little visibility under their process. EtQ implemented risk matrix for the business, which provided more information pertaining to the complaints. High-risk events in the process could now be easily discovered by the risk management team by using the risk data helping the business to stay on top of their compliance.

With configurable workflows, intelligent business rules, industry best practices, and risk assessment and risk management processes, EtQ controls and automates the processes related to compliance. “Our solution is unique. It offers several quantitative risk management tools to help companies quantify their risks with respect to compliance,” says Palmer.

Morgan Palmer finds quite a lot of commonalities in his hobby, mountain biking, and business management. Paraphrasing the CTO, patience and perseverance are mandatory. Following his example the team at EtQ is constantly working toward streamlining risk management by integrating data from IoT-based systems and other data points. “We are also building more mechanisms to extend risk to the supply-chain, bringing in more risk data from outside a company’s four walls,” informs Palmer.