By Nancy Hala, KnowledgeLeader Contributing Writer
DSM is an international organization that develops industrial chemicals, nutritional and pharmaceutical components, and performance materials. Rene Van Beekum has been the manager of corporate risk management and internal controls for DSM since 1991. In the late 80’s, DSM leadership made the decision to decentralize the company and empower the business groups to be responsible for their own results. Van Beekum became involved with automation projects that supported the evolution to a decentralized business group system. In this article Van Beekum discusses publishing an internal control manual to standardize processes, the three layers of risk assessment at DSM, and the 2004 advent of “True Blue” -- a compliance program – the beginning of ERM at DSM.