CoRiMa: Coronavirus Risk Management

Inspiration

The Coronavirus pandemic has caused immense uncertainty to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) globally. SMEs represent a significant proportion in the GDPs in today’s economies. Currently most Small and Medium Enterprises are struggling to:

assess the situation regarding Coronavirus,
identify areas that the Coronavirus crisis may impact them, and
predict the “Next Day” in order to position themselves in the market and plan future activities.

Significant issues that SMEs are called to tackle are among others the changes in working habits, the loss of employees due to leaves (e.g. when kids stay at home), constant changes in government decisions, disruptions in imports and export of raw materials and goods from other countries but also upcoming legislation even after exiting lockdowns. At the same time, taxes and social insurance liabilities are due to States while the forecasts for future business is uncertain. And finally, bank financing is even more difficult since banks, especially in Europe, are both lacking liquidity and are overburdened with non-performing loans.

The solution we bring to the table

We develop an online tool (CoRiMa - Coronavirus Risk Management) which performs specialized risk assessment of Coronavirus-related business attributes, focusing on the major areas that an SME may potentially face financial shortfalls. The tool, after receiving input from responding business managers, generates a score based on the risks. It is also able to suggest risk mitigation actions.

The problem our project solves

CoRiMa contributes to the identification of financial shortfalls and provides a quantification of risks. It also helps define mitigation actions and can be used by business managers with no special risk management expertise.

Some important details

The “Tool” is a simple Questionnaire type of checklist, with 55 questions. As a technology, we have already used it extensively in other forms such as Customer satisfaction surveys, Employee satisfaction surveys, Internal Audit risk analysis and other applications. We have used it and collected millions of other responses in the last three (3) years.

The tool is based exclusively on cloud technologies and as such, it is open to other agents and collaborators, easily interactable and integrated with all other web design and development technologies. Its front-end is designed in responsive form which is appropriate to all user devices.

What is “new” with the CoRiMa: we collated questions pertinent to Covid19 situations and their related business risks. Risks are categorized in categories such as government interventions – legal, tax, social contributions and economic / financial risks such as loss of revenues and customers, lack of cash, loss of inventories, impairment of production, etc. At the completion of the Questionnaire, the user, typically a business manager, will get a response back, a score card, pertaining to his/hers situation of risks.

The potential users will be SME entrepreneurs, financial officers, production managers, distribution managers, human resources managers, sales and marketing managers. Also others can profit from it, such as Bank credit officers, insurance agents and others willing to understand risk profiles of several types of companies in a varied spectrum of the sectors of the economy.

For a user to have access to the tool, we generate a URL and or a QRcode which we typically (a) send in the form of (a) an e-mail, (b) send in the form of SMS or Viber or Whatsapp messages, (c) advertise in social media. A short but comprehensive message precedes the URL and accompanies it, so a potential user knows what to expect. The message is addressed to potential audiences for them to join and fill in the questionnaire.

We have a strong sense of the need to work for the society, in the current turbulent times, when most business models will be threatened to their existence. Hence, as a Business case, our plan is to give the tool for free for the next 6 months to audiences in need. We are using this approach for all our cloud-based applications (including mobile ones) addressed to SMEs. This is an offer to the business society in need. To finance this operation, we shall utilize own funds. After the six-month period, we shall apply a fee per user amounting to approx. €50 per questionnaire.

How CoRiMa works

The identification of financial shortfalls and the risk assessment starts with a simple online questionnaire.
The questionnaire is provided to the users as a URL.
The questions address the size, the liabilities, legislative issues (regarding Coronavirus), revenues, tax and social insurance liabilities and general business expectations.
The responding managers evaluate the risks of their business in terms of likelihood and severity.
Each response is being given a weight and score.
The overall score per questionnaire derives from all questions and is provided as the result once the questionnaire has been submitted.
Scoring is based on algorithms.
Risks identified are monetized in euros.
The tool also provides a visual chart (heat map) of the risks based on their severity and their likelihood.

The responses gathered from all questionnaires will also be processed using data analytics methods in order to provide interactive charts for comparisons among other SMEs that have also participated in the survey.

This tool is available in all platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet), in an easy-to-use interface. It is accessible over internet to the general public attracted through social media campaigning that we perform with own means.

Our tool will contribute to the identification of the areas that an SME may be prone to financial shortfalls allowing for better understanding and management of the inherent risks and for better positioning of SMEs into upcoming Coronavirus challenges.

What we have done during the weekend

We developed the questions and populated the questionnaire. We worked on the video and outreach of our idea.

How we built it (technical details, architecture, tools used)

We used IBM DB2 Lotus Domino Designer in order to develop the questionnaire. The design is responsive allowing multiple platforms to operate seamlessly. Javascript was also employed.

For data analytics on the questionnaire responses we will use Python and MySQL. For the Dashboard we use VUE.js.

The algorithm to score and monetize each answer is based on several parameters, such as the size of the business entity and its industry sector, the type of the risk. Such parameters include for example revenue decline, loss of customers, impairment of production capacity, governments’ interventions and restrictive measures. Sentiment analysis may also be used to identify positive, negative or neutral responses among audiences.

We are a multidisciplinary team (web developers, data scientists, economists) and we all contributed to the effort of developing and visualizing this idea.

Accomplishments that we are proud of

We are dedicated to assist SMEs with easy-to-use and affordable IT solutions. We have already created and introduced in the market cloud solutions to manage business transactions (orders, sales, invoices, receivables, etc.) as well as financial models in risk management, internal audit, customer satisfaction surveys, personnel hiring and other similar business processes. All the above is available on the cloud in the form of SaaS – Software as a Service provisioning.

With CoRiMa, we are proud of creating an easy-to-use tool (simple questionnaire and score card) that will help even non-tech business managers assess the financial shortfalls and risks their enterprise may be facing due to Coronavirus. Furthermore, our tool will allow for SME managers compare the performance of their own business to other SMEs of the same or even a different sector.

What's next for CoRiMa

We are already working on the scoring algorithms of the questionnaire and the visualization of the responses. Our goal is in the following days to finalize our scoring system (weighting and score) based on the responses, create the web environment where the score and the heat maps will appear. We will also develop an online dashboard which will map the responses and provide comparison with other SMEs of the same or different sector.

We will provide free access to those needed and advertise the tool in social media (i.e. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter). Finally, we will provide assistance in form of risk mitigation actions when required. Since a lot of risks are related to Governments’ measures and interventions in form of acute regulatory decrees, we are already in discussion to have on board a top-level law firm.

CoRiMa's impact to the crisis

Our tool will help SMEs survive by identifying risks early and prioritizing mitigation actions. It will assist business managers find out the level of financing they may require in the foreseeable future and allow them to better position themselves in future activities.

The necessities in order to continue the project

We will carry out cross-checking of our ideas and approach with mentors. We shall finance the project with own funds and advertise in social media for outreach. We may offer the solution to SMEs for free for the next few months.

The value of our solution after the crisis

The tool will survive after the crisis with only one intervention: to eliminate current/temporary Government regulatory measures and replace them with permanent legislation. The tool will still be providing a score and risk mitigation actions related to general enterprise risks.