At ALM Intelligence, we are always fine-tuning our research agenda based on the shifting trends that impact consulting demand and the market forecasts generated by our proprietary market data model. When a recent outlook showed an uptick in client spending on risk management consulting, I wondered if any of that was driven by the buying center I study, which is the human resource (HR) function and c-suite stakeholders who influence corporate spending on HR consulting. After all, I reasoned to myself, HR has made great strides in recent years helping organizations get the most out of their people by collaborating with their counterparts in finance, operations, and IT. Why not collaborate with the risk function? The convergence of talent management and risk management seems a natural response to the meltdown in business ethics exposed by the 2008 financial crisis and innumerable events since, where the human element has proved a crucial variable in the risk equation. I set out to explore this hypothesis in my current research and what I learned was both validating and surprising.
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