The article reveals the essence of operational risk in financial organizations as the probability of losses due to the failure of internal processes, personnel errors, defects in information and technological infrastructure, and external factors that are not related to market and credit risks. It is shown that operational risk is a property of complex systems: the mismatch between the design and actual logic of processes creates vulnerabilities that can lead to loss events. A multi-axis classification of operational risk by the nature of the root causes, the nature of the consequences, the level of manageability, the duration of the effect, and the domains of occurrence is proposed, ensuring the comparability of metrics and linking them to process maps. Practical implications include integrating incident reporting, process maps, control procedures, indicators, and stress scenarios into management and regulatory reporting, applying the principle of proportionality, and demonstrating to regulatory authorities both the accuracy of SMA calculations and the effectiveness of management processes. It is concluded that a sustainable reduction in the frequency and severity of events is achieved not by complicating models, but by integrating data, control, and continuity into risk management cycles.