Global business risk consultancy, Control Risks today published its annual report plotting global risk predictions for the coming year. Now in its 30th year, their RiskMap highlights the most significant underlying trends in global risk and security, and provides a detailed view from the markets that will matter most in 2013.

Richard Fenning, CEO, Control Risks said: “RiskMap this year describes a world in which certainties are in shorter supply, and leadership more difficult to exercise. Managing companies or countries has become as much about reacting swiftly and decisively to changing circumstances as it has to do with the implementation of a strategy or policy.”

The CRG report predicts significant challenges facing world leaders in a climate where economic uncertainty and political unrest have made holding power more problematic. Dealing with the fiscal cliff and re-invigorating Chinese economic growth will be testing for both China and the US.

Globalisation’s interconnectivity demands that leaders constantly adapt to survive. In an era where management of crisis and the unexpected is the norm, leaders are required to operate in a “zone of continual uncertainty”. More than ever they need to be in touch, sure of their facts and supremely agile. Strategy will often take second place to subtlety, the report reads.

The corporate world faces particular challenges. The low or zero growth in the OECD is continuing to drive companies to new frontiers where the distinction between risk and opportunity is harder to define. There is potential to become risk obsessed - trapped between the twin imperatives of risk taking and risk reduction. As the report describes, often this can lead to inconsistency and paralysis.

This year's CRG report illustrates that political risk in developed markets is at its highest level for decades. The report also looks at how the early promise of the Arab Spring will give way to impatience and continued turbulence across the Middle East. It sees US foreign policy interests remaining necessarily global, whatever the temptations to contract from the Middle East or refocus on Asia-Pacific.

Further afield, Brazil has weathered the global financial crisis reasonably well, with the feel-good factor of the forthcoming World Cup and Olympics evident. However, significant problems persist. "Rampant corruption, high crime rates and inefficient bureaucracy have all tested successive governments, and President Dilma Rousseff is still searching for answers", reads the report.

Similarly, in Myanmar, the warm glow from recent images of Aung San Suu Kyi embracing Western leaders and the international prizes bestowed on President Thein Sein can distract from the complex process of peacefully dismantling one of the world’s most long-standing military dictatorships. The central question, according to CRG, and going beyond the fate of individual political leaders, is how far the country is capable of building the political and bureaucratic institutions needed to navigate change.

In Egypt, CRG believes foreign investors need not fear the Muslim Brotherhood. With a number of seasoned businesspeople in its ranks and a pragmatic approach to politics, the Muslim Brotherhood is at least as favourable to foreign investment as its chief opponents from across the political spectrum.

Nigeria, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, is a popular investment story and Lagos specifically has become a symbol of African entrepreneurship and commercial promise. However, the dynamism of this African mega-city belies a bleaker national picture with growth hampered by chronic insecurity, poor infrastructure and a growing gulf between north and south.

Despite these intimidating challenges, opportunities for investors still exist in surprising places for those able to map and manage the complexity and significant risk of a volatile world. This year RiskMap emphasises how much a company or country’s ability to exploit these opportunities increasingly depends on the ability of leadership to embed not just resilience but suppleness in their organisations and states.

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