Risk management is a top priority for chief financial officers and audit committee members, according to recent surveys at accounting firm Crowe Chizek.

More than 65 percent of CFOs and more than 70 percent of audit committee members say managing enterprise risk is the biggest challenge their organizations face in the coming 12 months, according to the aggregated results. The results suggest ERM is a challenge even greater than financial reporting and improving internal controls, Crowe says.

Rick Julien, an executive at Crowe Chizek says several factors make risk management such a challenge, including the increasingly global economy, turbulent market conditions, changing technology, changing demographics, and everyday operating challenges. “All of those are adding risks to all aspects of the business,” he says.

There’s plenty of room for improvement in understanding and managing risk, as less than 25 percent of respondents viewed their company’s performance as “excellent” on any specific risk-management tasks, the firm says. Julien says companies are coming to grips with the notion that ERM is bigger than a business unit or a corporate silo. “It isn’t a light switch that you can turn on and off,” he says. “It’s a journey, and you need a practical approach to get started.”

A separate study by consulting firm LRN, the “2008 Ethics and Compliance Risk Management Practices Report,” found that companies are making progress in their ethics and compliance education programs, but they need to become more strategic in addressing risk management and compliance. LRN says the number of companies using a formal cultural assessment increased 10 percent from 2007 to 2008.