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 Product History

We first started looking at the production of a risk management system in 1998. At that time all risk management solutions, regardless of whether the tool might be required for project use in the defence world, or for operational use in the financial world, were designed for use by individuals or within small teams.

It seemed clear, that in order to get the most out of risk management, an organization would need to take into account information from across the business ensuring that decisions could be made based on all the available and current data. For further details on the company history, please click here.

20 years of experience in the integration business has provided Strategic Thought with the knowledge and skills required to consistently deliver vision-fulfilling solutions to our customers.

It was this experience and knowledge of integration issues that allowed us to approach risk management from a far more holistic point of view when research first began in late 1999. Understanding that a risk management system that could truly address the risk management requirements of an entire organization (as well as the effect that different units within an enterprise have on each other) led to a realization that it would need to take account of all of the different human and technology components within a business.

From the beginning ARM was designed to be integrated with 3rd party project and requirements planning applications such as MS Project, Telelogic Doors, and Primavera. Now, through the ARM Portal, we are able to integrate ARM with almost any enterprise application, facilitating the delivery of all relevant information to the right people, so that such data can be used in the decision making process and developments can therefore be reported on to management at the right time and in a secure fashion.

Development of Active Risk Manager in 1999 and the solution was launched in November 2000, with AMEC signing up as the first customer.

With its roots in project risk, the first large project risk management implementation was with Lockheed Martin where are ARM was selected as the software solution to manage all the risks on the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project, the largest and most expensive project ever. Lockheed needed an software solution that would facilitate the proactive management of risks across the entire JSF project , including those risks of over 40 sub-contractors and customers.

ARM was able to reduce the time spent on risk management by 75% (equating to approximately 425 man hours per month on data manipulation alone) and significantly reduced budget and schedule impacts (see case study).

Today, Active Risk Manager has been rolled out to more than 75 customers, and now supports over 25,000 users. It has been hailed by leading analysts and risk professionals as the most comprehensive risk management software solution available on the market. After ensuring that our solution met the needs of project and program managers, we continued with our vision of providing a solution that meets the needs and integrates and collaborates with the entire organization.

Active Risk Manager was far ahead of its time when we started offering functionality for the operations and governance requirements of a business. ARM offered businesses the functionality required to summarize the risks across the business into a single set of views that could be presented to the executive layer of the business, whilst also taking into account the board’s governance responsibilities and supporting these with compliance and risk management.

ARM is now one of the leading solutions for the management of operational and corporate risks. Nestle is using ARM to manage the many operational risks that it is exposed to such as supply chain, reputation and cash-flow. Reducing provision expenditure and more accurate forecasting has led to lower costs of risk mitigation as well as eliminating risk duplication (see case study).

Another customer benefiting from the operational capabilities of ARM is Network Rail. Their goal was to deliver one corporate system and one risk management process that would eradicate all risk silos within Network Rail. Deployment of a corporate risk process through ARM has enabled Network Rail to take a holistic view of risk across all projects, and is now achieving clear and auditable compliance with governance and regulatory requirements (see case study).

We have consistently improved and refined the application through our regular release cycle, and since 2004 have been developing capability specifically aimed at managing the different risk and opportunity elements that affect all the functions across and enterprise or endeavour. You can learn more about how Active Risk Manager supports the many different disciplines affected by risk in an organization in the Risk Management Disciplines section.

Strategic Thought expanded its risk management portfolio in 2005 with the acquisition of RisGen, a complimentary ERM application with a strong customer base in the government and health sectors. In order to ensure Active Risk Manager’s continued leadership of the marketplace, the functionality of RisGen will be incorporated into ARM over the next 18 months.

The STS team remains important: it holds both Microsoft Gold Partner status and IBM Premier Partner status. Continuing to deliver complex solutions to the highest level of quality in both the IBM and Microsoft spaces uniquely places Strategic Thought in the delivery of risk solutions to its customers. Unlike many other application designers and suppliers, Strategic Thought is able to offer the complete package of services required to implement an effective and efficient enterprise-wide risk management system.