Audi 2010 Annual Report Download - page 175

173
Management Report
132 Audi Group
141 Business and underlying
situation
156 Financial performance
indicators
159 Social and ecological aspects
159 Employees
162 Audi in society
163 Location-based
environmental aspects
167 Product-based
environmental aspects
173 Risks, opportunities
and outlook
173 Risk report
179 Report on post-balance sheet
date events
179 Report on expected
developments
183 Disclaimer
RISKS, OPPORTUNITIES AND OUTLOOK
RISK REPORT
The risk management system within the Audi Group
Further development of risk management
The Audi Group’s entrepreneurial activity naturally entails risks as well as opportunities. For this
reason, the Audi Group has operated a Company-wide risk management system for many years.
It has proven invaluable particularly in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis.
Thanks especially to its ability to identify potential risks early on and take appropriate counter-
measures, the Company has succeeded in generating a clear profit even throughout the most
severe economic crisis of the post-war era.
Along with the passing of the German Accounting Law Modernization Act (BilMoG), the statutory
framework for risk management in Germany became even more tightly regulated. The rapid,
drastic downturn in economic activity in the crisis followed by an immediate recovery further-
more suggests that there will be growing volatility in global markets in future. This makes it
more difficult for companies to draw up long-term plans and forecasts, which are consequently
significantly less reliable.
The Audi Group has comprehensively responded to this development and installed a central risk
management system in the past fiscal year, over and above its non-central risk organization.
The objective is to identify the many risks inseparably associated with the Company’s business
activities as early as possible in order to minimize or eliminate them, amid an increasingly diffi-
cult environment. Entrepreneurial risks are deliberately taken only where they are controllable
and commensurate with the anticipated benefit from that business activity.
Risk management approach
The operational tasks involved in risk management continue to be implemented in the business
processes through non-central organizational processes at the individual divisions and subsidiaries.
The additional function of Central Risk Management acts as partner to the non-central risk man-
agers and passes Group-wide processes and standards on the identification and evaluation of
risks. It also monitors the effectiveness of the risk management instruments used non-centrally
(internal controlling system) and ensures that they are continually optimized. At the same time
Central Risk Management observes and analyzes developments in the Company’s environment in
respect of changing or new risk indicators and thus endeavors to ensure that preventive meas-
ures are implemented early on by the risk managers.
THE RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM WITHIN THE AUDI GROUP
Central Risk Management
Non-central
risk managers
Non-central
risk managers
Non-central
risk managers
Non-central
risk managers
Transparency Steering
Risk inventory – Risk evaluation –
Risk early warning – Risk culture
Risk minimization – Risk avoidance –
Risk reporting – Risk monitoring