Barometrix Announces RISK IQ™

Manage Exposure and Deliver Business Value

Framingham, MA – Feb 28, 2006 – Barometrix today announced RISK IQ, a business application for risk managers that increases visibility to asset exposures and identifies the most effective loss mitigation strategies. RISK IQ is portfolio management software that applies a global set of assessment parameters and loss mitigation goals across multiple assets to increase the effectiveness of decision-making.

RISK IQ allows risk managers to consider several factors affecting decisions about assets, such as:

• Mitigation Goals

• Threat and Loss Assessment

• Effectiveness of Mitigation Strategies

• Financial Risk Profiles

In addition, dozens of other factors influencing the expected outcome of loss mitigation strategies are included in RISK IQ.

RISK IQ also allows risk managers to quantify the tangible and intangible organizational benefits of implementing loss mitigation strategies. These not only include the reduction in expected loss, but also cost savings from mitigation strategies (e.g. reduced insurance costs), productivity improvements, brand protection and a variety of other organizational benefits. Ultimately, RISK IQ helps risk managers justify investments in loss mitigation strategies based on both the expected loss reduction and other organizational benefits.

Unlike many software products in the marketplace today, RISK IQ ships with a pre-packaged threat and loss assessment framework, simplifying the effort required to perform assessments. Key components of this framework are customizable to align with organizational constraints, metrics, definitions and overall vision.

RISK IQ uses a proprietary algorithm to rate, weight, score and rank threat levels based on key factors an organization wants to consider. In addition, the software is capable of assessing the effectiveness of loss mitigation strategies ranging from insurance, legal, audit, operational, infrastructure, process or other proven approaches. As a result, RISK IQ provides multi-dimensional analysis capabilities to identify loss mitigation strategies that best meet corporate objectives.

RISK IQ brings risk managers the following benefits:

• Consistently compares threat levels and loss mitigation effectiveness across diverse portfolios

• Quantifies threat levels and impacts

• Ensures loss mitigation decisions are consistent and tied to organizational objectives

• Facilitates periodic risk review ensuring on-track performance

• Considers both financial and hard-to-quantify non-financial factors

• Pre-packaged risk framework simplifies implementation

• Customizable KPI’s to reflect unique organizational issues

• Brings structure to risk management decisions and fosters collaboration

Commenting on the announcement, David Vellante, President and CEO of Barometrix said, “RISK IQ provides risk managers a means of advancing an integrated risk management vision. It offers a customizable risk assessment framework, right out of the box, based on best practices. Further, it gives managers a tool to justify loss mitigation investments not only based on reduced exposures, but also bottom line-oriented benefits like profits and productivity.”

RISK IQ: How it Works

RISK IQ uses a rich framework that includes both financial and non-financial indicators to support risk-oriented decision-making, including:

• Risk Summary

• Mitigation Goals

• Stakeholder Impact

• Threat & Loss Assessment

• Loss Mitigation Strategies

• Risk Benchmarks

• Financial Profile

• Prerequisites

• Membership Groupings

Each element shown contains multiple factors, which are customizable by an administrator, without any IT programming required. The elements of this framework are weighed according to organizational priorities and risk assessment levels adjusted accordingly.

Threat assessment scores for each initiative derive from user inputs and ratings of each asset or initiative under investigation. Threat levels and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies are evaluated on an apples-to-apples basis based on overall weightings applied consistently across the portfolio. The results produce metrics and scores, which enable rankings and various decision-making outputs including:

• Quadrant and bubble charts (e.g. Event Frequency X Impact)

• Side-by-side sorting and rankings (e.g. Top 10 Exposures)

• Detailed viewing and comparison of scores

• Detailed viewing of key performance indicators

• Aggregate portfolio dashboards

Additional Capabilities and Features

Using an embedded database, RISK IQ brings outstanding functionality, including the following:

• Customizable X, Y, Z Axis creation for quadrant/ bubble charts
  
  
• KPI Clustering enabling multiple KPI’s to be grouped, scored and plotted on a bubble or quadrant chart
  
  
• Customizable Portfolio Membership allowing initiatives to be classified, grouped and viewed (e.g. by threat level or department)
  
  
• Detailed Viewing Dashboards, allowing users to drill down into key initiatives within the portfolio to investigate key metrics
  
  
• Embedded Sort/Rank capability to rapidly identify assets and initiatives based on user defined or standard key performance indicators
  

About Barometrix Software
Since 1999, Barometrix Software Corporation has offered better solutions to overly complex, cumbersome and expensive decision software. Barometrix develops software products for every day managers to improve their business through best practice decision-making. Barometrix products are installed worldwide and help thousands of business managers improve decision-making. Deployment of Barometrix software is simple and requires no IT programming.