It seems at the moment all the news is doom and gloom. However, even in times like these one of the things that gets businesses through is a focus on generating value. At BPS we are seeing a very positive trend in new business bookings in 2008. 70% of this growth is coming from sectors outside of financial services, such as power generation, transportation, government and health care.

Some analysts have suggested that the current economic conditions have spurred an increase in interest in the risk management market overall. This may be true, however, we have seen that well managed companies began making risk management a priority months ago when they asked their internal audit, compliance and business units to look for ways to provide more consistent risk coverage and better reporting for the enterprise.

Everyone in the space should be impressed with the level of maturity in risk management thinking that seems to be emerging in companies around the world. This means smarter, more discriminating users of risk management technology – good for software providers who have put product and value first. We see this trend continuing into 2009 and beyond