A recent white paper I wrote discussed the benefits of scenario analysis. The purpose of scenario analysis is to see how economic, environmental, political, and technological change can impact a company’s business. The recent outbreak of COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”) is a perfect example of how an environmental event can have an impact on the local and, as we are finding out, global economy.
As the world watches this virus spread, I suspect there are some companies who are thankful they created a pandemic scenario. Right now, they are probably preparing to take steps to enact the procedures they created after running the scenario. I also suspect there are other companies who might be in a bit of panic as they wonder how much this will impact them. To those companies I suggest they start considering the impacts now. While we hope this will not reach full pandemic level, the future is unknown.
Jonathan Leonardelli, FRM, Director of Business Analytics for FRG, leads the group responsible for model development, data science, documentation, testing, and training. He has over 15 years’ experience in the area of financial risk.