Most current approaches to corporate strategy and risk management are incomplete and outdated. Non-financial topics are often siloed within an organization. Manual data analysis, expensive consultants and statistically under-representative surveys can make materiality analysis challenging and leave businesses open to potential risks they could have foreseen.

As the global leader in Software as a Service (SaaS) for non-financial risk management, Datamaran 4 provides with a holistic solution that enables evidence-based decision-making. The platform ultimately helps to take control of benchmarking, materiality analysis and non-financial issues monitoring processes in-house on a systematic and ongoing basis. 

Depending on a company maturity level, Datamaran 4 is used for benchmarking, materiality analysis, annual sustainability and integrated reporting, enterprise risk assessment and management, which ultimately guide corporate strategy. The end goal is to help companies to embed non-financial issues into business in a resource-efficient way. 

Being SaaS means customers trust that Datamaran continuously evolves along their journey and provides the best software service tailored to their corporate needs.

Datamaran’s Artificial Intelligence replaced manual data analysis, expensive consultants and statistically under-representative surveys that used to be the stumbling blocks of traditional materiality analysis. Carefully supported by the team of data scientists as well as ESG and risk experts, the software tracks 100 non-financial topics by sifting and analyzing millions of data points from publicly available sources.

The sources include corporate reports (financial, sustainability reports as well as SEC filings), mandatory regulations and voluntary initiatives, as well as news and social media.

The Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique - that analyzes text (narratives) and derives meaning from human language - is then applied to these data sources to extract comparable information. As a result, the platform provides with an evidence-based perspective into regulatory, strategic and reputational risks as well as reporting patterns relevant for a particular company.

Datamaran 4 harnesses technology to support decision-makers with an improved materiality analysis process – one that will seamlessly integrate into Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and corporate strategy.

What used to be labor-intensive and expensive is now automated with Datamaran 4 Materiality Application – a powerful tool that combines data-driven analysis with stakeholder analysis and business strategy.

It works by leveraging software to help the company build its own analysis and identify its organizational material issues. The insights clients gain can inform their corporate strategy and focus reporting on the issues that are most critical for their company and their stakeholders.

In a summary table, each column shows the importance of a topic to a different external stakeholder group – such as peers, regulators, the general public and media. As such, data from the Benchmark module shows the topics peers find important. Data from the Observe module brings in the most regulated topics relevant to a company. Social module brings in the public voice through social media data and the NewsFlow module reveals topics mostly covered in the news. 

Once the ground work is done, the Survey Function allows clients to validate their findings by getting key stakeholders’ opinion with customized surveys. Leveraging both digital news and media as well as direct engagement ensures a much deeper and wider understanding of stakeholder views than before. 

Finally, the newly built Comparison Module is a centerpiece of continuous monitoring processes. With the module customers are able to compare materiality analysis over time by using the same parameters. The materiality matrix can be refreshed as often as requested and customers can see which issues have moved and what has changed. Importantly, the exact drivers behind each change can be identified as everything is trackable to each and individual data source.

This data-driven approach to materiality analysis means one can incorporate a wider range of data and stakeholders than would ever have been possible manually.

Although materiality analysis is a dominant use case, Datamaran clients are increasingly using the platform for their Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). Similarly to the risk practitioners’ business processes, Datamaran enables an evidence-based approach to non-financial risk identification and management. This ensures a full alignment of risk management processes internally and a close collaboration between sustainability and risk teams. 

Those who assess and manage non-financial risks alongside other risks, use Datamaran 4 as part of the process of identifying, measuring, mitigating, monitoring and reporting non-financial risks following the stages outlined by The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). 

Those who are at an early stage of ESG integration, use Datamaran 4 for benchmarking against their peers or wider industries as well as research.

Using technology does not mean that the human element is taken out of the process. While the
system does all the analytical work, ensuring objective consistency in the methodology, the user is always in control of the key parameters that drive the outcomes – peer groups to benchmark, jurisdictions to analyze, news and social media influencers to track – and applies a different weight of importance to each component.

The platform ultimately helps to take control of benchmarking, materiality analysis and issues monitoring processes in-house, embed non-financial issues into business on a systematic and ongoing basis as opposed to be delegating these vital activities to external consultants.

The Datamaran approach can be complementary to the traditional stakeholder engagement and surveying; it empowers and integrates the process. Engaging stakeholders is a key activity for monitoring the pulse of the closest communities of stakeholders, and Datamaran 4 has dedicated functionalities to survey internal and external stakeholders.

The leading solution for non-financial risk management.