computer simulation instead of spreadsheets
I assume you mean, "simulation as opposed to simple numerical projection."
But I'm not sure this is really addressing the problems with risk management in large firms. My impression is that we don't really know what to simulate or what the tail risks are. Adding computers doesn't solve that problem.
As an aside: I suspect that Excel or other spreadsheet is a very reasonable programming framework for doing simulations in a business context. Business analysts can do some pretty impressive spreadsheet tricks...
But I'm not sure this is really addressing the problems with risk management in large firms. My impression is that we don't really know what to simulate or what the tail risks are. Adding computers doesn't solve that problem.
Being that this has been my job for the last year, you're in my experience mostly right. The biggest problem up to now is in risk modeling, not in the application of the models, both in evaluating single risks and (especially) in doing risks aggregation. Many of the existing models for some common risks are also analytically solvabl...
Stanford Professor Sam Savage (also of Probability Management) proposes that large firms appoint a "Chief Probability Officer." Here is a description from Douglas Hubbard's How to Measure Anything, ch. 6:
Hubbard adds some of his own ideas to the proposal: