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What is Business Resilience?

What is business resilience

Business resilience describes an organization's ability to respond and adapt quickly to disruptions or significant, unplanned changes that could threaten its operations, people, assets, brand, or reputation.

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Why is business resilience a priority?

The risk of business disruption is always present. But recent events—namely the global health crisis—have led to a renewed and intensified focus on business resilience for organizations across the globe. Business leaders and IT decision-makers now recognize that the unexpected can happen and should be planned for accordingly.

A prescriptive and reactive approach has long been the foundation of business continuity. But to successfully navigate future disruptions, business leaders will need to adopt a new mindset—one that emphasizes the IT agility needed to achieve business resilience.

What is business resilience vs. business continuity?

Business continuity is the capability of an organization to deliver products and services within acceptable timeframes at predefined capacity during a disruption. A business continuity plan is documented information that guides an organization to respond to a disruption.

Business resilience is an organization's ability to absorb stress, recover critical functionality, and thrive in altered circumstances. In short, it positions organizations to prepare for anything.

Traditionally, business resilience was IT-focused. It meant ensuring that applications and data would remain available and secure during a disruptive event such as a cyber attack—provided the disruption lasted only hours or days and affected facilities or workers in just one region.

Now business resiliency needs to be about more than just protecting a company's IT operations. Organizations must be able to adapt operations in response to continuous change as well as major events and continue to thrive.

Until recently, few businesses had business resilience or business continuity plans for global events that would last for months, result in extended travel shutdowns, and prompt lasting changes to how a company operates and where its employees work. 

Considerations for business resiliency planning

The ability to adapt fast is now a critical measure of success for businesses. Here are some things to consider when an organization creates a plan for developing business resilience.

Business recovery risks

What would happen if the business experienced a disruption or damage that impacted its ability to conduct day-to-day operations for an extended period? Risks can range from supply chain operations and extensive property damage to loss of critical staff.  How will the business ensure continued availability and access to applications and data? What strategies should be implemented and what resources need to be aligned?

Employee safety

Can the business track the health, safety, and availability of both remote and onsite workers in the event of a disaster or major disruption? What safety policies should be in place and how should they be communicated? What training is needed?

When people return to the workplace after a disruptive event, how will the business continue to promote their safety? For example, many organizations are investing in technology to help people maintain social distancing and to conduct contact tracing as the health crisis persists.  

Financial loss mitigation

The longer a business is unable to operate normally, the greater the risk for financial loss. To mitigate that risk, business resilience planning should consider what systems, processes, and people are most essential to mission-critical operations—and outline steps for restoring their functionality as quickly as possible. 

Other considerations

Other questions an organization may want to address:

  • What can we do to protect our brand and reputation?
  • How can we optimize business decision-making during a crisis?
  • How can we maintain our service to customers and partners not only following a disruption, but also in response to changing trends and expectations?

Strategies for building business resilience

These strategies can also help to increase IT agility and deliver an optimum application experience.

Preparing for the future of work

Business resiliency means being able to adapt to gradual but significant change as well as sudden disruptions. This can mean transforming culture, workplaces, and workflows by investing in new collaboration tools and technology.

Cisco Webex vision of the future of work

Increasing cyber resilience

Cyber resilience helps to build business resilience, whether it's understanding how best to secure a remote or hybrid workforce or creating simpler but more effective cybersecurity practices for the organization. 

Future of Secure Remote Work report

Accelerating a multicloud strategy

Using multiple cloud providers for can increase business resilience, allowing organizations to mitigate the risk of downtime and service outages. Moving between cloud services creates agility and makes it possible to scale services up or down depending on need. Organizations can bring new IT infrastructure online in minutes and rapidly provision computing resources to users working from anywhere.

Multicloud networking white paper (PDF)

Planning for IT infrastructure resilience

As part of reimagining and redesigning the workforce and workplace, organizations need to make sure that their IT infrastructure is also resilient. This includes having the ability to provide highly secure virtual desktops to all workers, wherever they are located, and to optimize on-premises and cloud resources continuously to maintain performance and control costs.

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A Comprehensive Guide to Business Resilience

Discover why business resilience is becoming essential to the modern organization and what you can do to foster resilience at your company..

What you'll learn about:

What is business resilience in corporate risk management?

  • What does business resilience look like in 2022?
  • Develop a resilient business
  • Building resilience: Strategies and best practices
  • Foster resilience by operationalizing real-time technology

Before 2020, business resilience was a smaller—though still important—capability for enterprises. Plenty of organizations understood resilience and its impact on business operations, but few implemented programs that developed resiliency for long-term success.

Today, business resilience is essential. No event has demonstrated this truth more dramatically than the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, 90% of business leaders agree the pandemic raised the importance of risk management and corporate resilience. But even in the face of COVID-19, businesses had to keep pace with an evolving risk landscape and an increasing number of threats—all of which had the potential to strike a blow to critical infrastructure and operations.

That’s why building and strengthening business resilience is mission-critical to the future of any organization. Not only is resilience key to mitigating the short- and long-term effects of disruptive events, it’s also essential to growth and survival.

Let’s take a closer look at business resiliency and what can be done to create and maintain a more resilient organization.

Although many businesses are still recovering from the global pandemic, they have taken a renewed interest in developing crisis contingency plans and other resiliency programs.

According to the International Organization for Standardization , resilience is an organization’s ability to adapt to a business disruption while maintaining operations under changing circumstances. In other words, a resilient organization is one that can absorb the initial shock of a disruption while also pivoting in response to its dynamic environment.

It’s important to note that business resilience shouldn’t be confused with business continuity . Although they’re related and often overlapping terms , business continuity planning is focused on immediate response and short-term operation. In contrast, resiliency approaches risk management with a long-term and proactive lens.

Moreover, business resilience is a combination of several risk management disciplines, including business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis management. But the bottom line: Resiliency is about planning ahead, anticipating disruption and adapting to changes as necessary.

Why is business resilience important? 

Organizations that had at least some semblance of resiliency were able to keep critical business operations functioning during the pandemic and multiple, compounding crisis of the past several years. The others —those who lacked a resilient risk management posture—were more exposed to consequences such as the following:

  • Significant financial loss
  • Reputational damage
  • Threats to employee health, safety and wellbeing
  • Loss or disruption of critical infrastructure
  • Loss of corporate data, assets and other resources

According to the Bain Resilience Index , high-resilience firms have nearly double the survival rate of low-resilience organizations. That means resilience is becoming synonymous with survival. And when you consider the increasingly sporadic and unpredictable threat vectors that put organizations at risk, it’s plain to see why resilience is garnering so much attention.

The business resilience plan 

Anticipating disruption is fundamental to resilience. But to anticipate a disruptive event, you need to be forward-thinking—that’s where the business resilience plan comes into play. 

A business resilience plan is a document designed to help organizations navigate business disruption and return to a state of acceptable operation. In short, it outlines the necessary steps a firm should take to mitigate and survive a crisis. The basic contents of a business resilience plan include the following:

  • Business impact analysis: Evaluates the potential consequences of a disruption.
  • Risk assessment: Identifies risk factors with the potential to cause harm.
  • Risk management plan: Documents steps taken to keep risks in check.
  • Business continuity plan: Outlines how the business should continue to operate during a disruption.
  • Disaster recovery plan: Describes how a firm can quickly minimize the impact of a disaster so the organization can resume operation.
  • Crisis management plan: Outlines how to respond to a situation that negatively affects profitability, reputation or ability to operate.
  • Incident response plan: Describes procedures for identifying and responding to an emergency incident.

Benefits of resilience planning 

Business resilience isn’t merely a survival strategy—it’s an ongoing competitive advantage. Take the impact of a natural disaster, for example. When an extreme weather event strikes a manufacturing plant, it not only halts operations at that one facility, but also triggers a domino effect that’s felt across the supply chain. An effective business resilience plan provides the framework a firm needs to mitigate the ongoing ramifications of the disaster and accelerate recovery.

Thus, business resilience planning offers three key advantages:

  • Improved risk detection: Resilient firms don’t just wait for disruption—they anticipate and prepare. This enables them to recognize, mitigate and respond to risk more quickly and effectively.
  • Stronger elasticity: Resilient businesses are like rubber bands in that they can stretch to their limit and return to form. With a well-prepared and agile response plan, they can withstand the initial shock of unexpected disruption and rebound to an acceptable state of operation.
  • Greater recovery: Resilience enables organizations to thrive in their new post-crisis environment because of their ability to adapt and overcome the new normal.

What does business resilience look like in 2022? 

COVID-19 may have been an eye-opener for most businesses, but the truth is that resilience has been a long time coming.

Business leaders must contend with a risk landscape that is more complicated, less predictable and increasingly difficult to manage. This includes a multitude of risk factors that are increasing in frequency and severity over the past 30 years. And global uncertainty, climate change, geopolitical risk, cyber attacks and natural disasters are all on the rise.

Here’s the problem: A substantial number of firms still lack the resiliency to keep up with the accelerating pace of the risk landscape. According to FERMA, just 57% of businesses believe they’re equipped to manage resilience, and nearly three-quarters of them see a clear need to strongly integrate resilience into their organizational strategy.

6 areas of business resilience 

The good news is that there are six fundamental areas of focus that business leaders can use to develop and strengthen resilience:

  • Financial resilience: Organizations are often blinded by short-term returns and not focused enough on long-term financial risk. Balancing the two with a solid capital position and sufficient amount of liquidity is key to mitigating fluctuations in revenue, cost or credit. For example, in 2016 Samsung Note 7 smartphones would catch fire under certain conditions, prompting a $5.3 billion recall. The crisis may have put Samsung’s smartphone operation in jeopardy, but it was able to quickly recover because of its flexible investment portfolio.
  • Technological resilience: Businesses that invest in secure, flexible technology stacks and operationalize high-quality data are better equipped to deliver projects safely, on time and under budget. They’re also able to develop a robust IT disaster recovery plan to avoid service outages and maintain critical business operations during a disruptive event, such as a cyber attack or similar incident.
  • Organizational resilience: Employee acquisition, retention and satisfaction are big parts of mastering organizational resilience. Firms that foster diversity and inclusion, develop a culture of agile learning and secure top talent are able to more flexibly navigate fluctuations in the workforce, such as the “ Great Resignation .”
  • Operational resilience: Supply chain disruptions can undermine productivity and send business operations into disarray without contingencies in place. Resilient organizations are able to pivot to meet sudden changes in supply and demand, such as by adding redundancies to their supply chain.
  • Reputational resilience: Consumers, employees, investors and other stakeholders are holding businesses accountable for their actions and values. Resilient organizations bridge the gap between the two and closely align what they say with what they do. They embrace accountability, are open to change and actively listen and respond to societal expectations.
  • Business-model resilience: Traditional business models were put to the test when the pandemic forced companies to shift to remote work. Firms with flexible models in place were able to quickly adjust as needed, which enabled business continuity during a time of uncertainty.

Develop a resilient business 

Implementing resilient strategies is much easier said than done—especially when organizations lack a proper understanding of risk and resilience. There are three main barriers to becoming resilient:

No. 1. The returns are long-term: 

Many businesses are focused on short-term returns rather than long-term sustainability. Achieving resilience requires a multi-timescale perspective—one that accounts for both immediate and future continuity. BCG estimates that roughly 60% of companies are preparing to navigate a likely recession, but only 40% are preparing for a rebound in demand. Even fewer have begun reimagining their business for the post-pandemic environment, meaning that most organizations aren’t adapting to the new normal.

No. 2. Plans are too static:

Companies are primarily concerned with creating fixed continuity plans rather than dynamic ones. But risk isn’t set in stone—it’s ever-changing and unpredictable. Stable plans are only effective when the causal relationship between incident and impact is clear. 

No. 3. Business leaders need convincing:

Strategies for business resilience often create value differently than an organization’s typical activities. For this reason, it may take clear evidence and explanation to convince decision makers that resiliency strategies are a worthwhile investment.

Building resilience: Strategies and best practices 

Implementing a culture of business resiliency throughout an organization doesn’t happen overnight. But with time, dedication and a few basic strategies, businesses can get started in the right direction.

The following are tangible actions and best practices business leaders can use to win executive buy-in, develop strategic resilience and elevate their risk management abilities:

  • Integrate risk into everything: Consider resilience as both an opportunity and an imperative to expand the organization’s scope beyond the limits of short-term return. By assessing the impact of lost or reduced functionality in every business operation, you can coordinate a tailored response to mitigate a potential disaster.
  • Discuss resilience in terms executives understand: In other words, measure resilience in terms of the bottom line. Communicating the relative cost of disruption will help convince executives that resiliency is a critical component of growth and sustainability.
  • Be a forward-thinker: Look past the short term to help business leaders see the long-term implications of disruption. Shifting time horizons outward allows organizations to see the bigger picture and turn crisis into opportunity.
  • Identify strengths and weaknesses: Know where your vulnerabilities are. This is key to understanding the risk environment. Test your resilience strategies against various scenarios to better analyze performance and implement improvements.
  • Embed resilience within first-line teams: People are an important piece of the resilience puzzle. Ensure frontline employees are integrated into the resilience framework, which empowers them to participate in risk management and enhances their ability to spot and respond to disruptions.
  • Establish an early-warning system: The faster a threat is identified, the sooner it can be addressed and the faster the organization can respond. Third-party solutions, such as a real-time information tool, can be leveraged to kick-start incident response and get ahead of potential threats.

Foster resilience by operationalizing real-time technology 

Although there’s much debate about how businesses should quantitatively measure resilience, there are four qualitative factors that all resilient organizations have in common. A truly resilient business can:

  • Identify and assess risks that threaten critical infrastructure.
  • Locate people and assets that might be in harm’s way.
  • Execute standard operating procedures and protocols.
  • Analyze performance before, during and after disruption and crises.

Mastering all four of these conditions is no easy task. But by implementing a real-time alerting solution like Dataminr Pulse, businesses can rise to the challenge faster than ever before.

Dataminr Pulse processes billions of units of information daily pulled from hundreds of thousands of publicly available data sources to detect the earliest indications of emerging risks and high-impact events—often within seconds or minutes of their occurrence. Combined with geovisualization capabilities, Pulse helps security teams locate and safeguard people and assets during a crisis by providing rich visual context. 

For example, when severe weather struck Western Europe, Dataminr Pulse alerted customers about potential flash floods in the area using geo-location data. This allowed customers to view relevant data at the hyperlocal level, prioritize risk by area and ensure business continuity.

Pulse’s collaboration capabilities also enable customers to develop their own iterative response playbooks. They can then quickly move from risk detection to mitigation—a critical advantage when managing a high-risk situation. And they can use real-time and historical data to assess incident management performance from end to end, including any lingering effects on the business.

As a result, those who employ Dataminr Pulse are better able to maintain business continuity and achieve the business resiliency needed to grow and compete today and tomorrow. 

Learn More 

Request a demo today to learn more about the power of Dataminr Pulse. 

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Business Continuity vs Business Resiliency: What’s The Difference?

what is business resilience plan

If there is one thing that businesses around the world have learned this year, it is this: nothing is certain. When we wished each other Happy New Year, most of us expected life to go on as usual. But as Dr. Spencer Johnson said in his best-selling book Who Moved My Cheese ,

“Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley”.

All businesses want to flourish regardless of the season, but this calls for forward planning and risk management to make one prepared for the unforeseen. And this brings us to two terms—business continuity and business resiliency—that are used interchangeably but are different in some ways.

Let’s take a look.

What is Business Continuity?

The ISO 22300:2018 standard defines business continuity as:

“The capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruption”.

A disruption could be anything from your superstar employee moving to your competitor, new legislation forcing you to make drastic changes to your products, or an unforeseen event in the local or global economy that destroys what you have taken years to build. Business continuity means anticipating such disruptions and preparing a plan to ensure that you can continue business operations if the disruptions materialize.

We can use the Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) cycle to describe the activities involved in business continuity management :

Plan Do Check Act (PDCA)

Planning for business continuity mainly involves:

  • Understanding the environment in which your organization operates.
  • Identifying potential risks which, if they materialize, can disrupt day-to-day operations. As you identify risks, you’ll classify, prioritize, and determine mitigation actions.

In addition, business impact analysis exercises are used to identify critical business processes, the underlying assets that support them, and the potential impact the organization faces should the assets or processes be disrupted. Here, key metrics such as RTO, RPO, and MAO are used to determine the acceptable disruption and required speed of continuity.

This involves implementing the control measures that would ensure continuity in case disruption occurs in line with the business continuity plan . These would include:

  • Appropriate IT systems
  • Defined target metrics

As people are expected to implement the business continuity plan, you must provide training for key players and create awareness for everyone involved to ensure alignment and preparation for the unexpected.

The organization must continue to regularly check whether the control measures are working and remain relevant to meeting the organization’s needs, especially as the environment changes. Testing will identify whether the continuity metrics can be met using existing measures or more is required.

Based on the results of the tests and actual disruptions, the leadership will need to take both corrective and preventive action to ensure the business continuity plan remains effective for the ever-evolving context that the business faces.

( Learn more about how the PDCA cycle can support continuous improvement .)

What is Business Resiliency?

The ISO 22316:2017 standard defines organizational resilience as:

“The ability of an organization to absorb and adapt in a changing environment to enable it to deliver its objectives and to survive and prosper.”

ITIL 4 defines resilience as the ability of an organization to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and adapt to both incremental changes and sudden disruptions from an external perspective.

In simple terms, it means taking a blow and recovering from it. For a business, that means that when disruption occurs, you have mechanisms in place to absorb the hit without significant impairment to your business operations.

In order to have a framework for effective organizational resilience, there are certain principles that need to be adhered to. Resilience requires:

  • Behaviour that is aligned with a shared vision and purpose
  • An up-to-date understanding of an organization’s context
  • Ability to absorb, adapt, and effectively respond to change
  • Good governance and management
  • Diversity of skills, leadership, knowledge, and experience
  • Coordination across management disciplines and contributions from technical and scientific areas of expertise
  • Effective risk management

With these principles in place, you can deploy a coordinated approach that provides:

  • A mandate to ensure the organization’s leadership is committed to enhance organizational resilience
  • Adequate resources needed to enhance the organization’s resilience
  • Appropriate governance structures to achieve the effective coordination of organizational resilience activities
  • Mechanisms to ensure investments in resilience activities are appropriate to the organization’s internal and external context
  • Systems that support the effective implementation of organizational resilience activities
  • Arrangements to evaluate and enhance resilience in support of organizational requirements
  • Effective communications to improve understanding and decision making

Continuity vs Resilience: Next steps

According to PWC , business resilience builds on the principles of business continuity but extends much further to help enhance an organization’s immune system to be able to tackle challenges, fend off illness and bounce back more quickly.

Continuity vs Resilience: Next steps

How to increase Business Resiliency

As there is no single approach to enhance an organization’s resilience, it is more realistic to consider it the result of:

  • The relationships and interactions of attributes and activities.
  • Contributions from other management disciplines such as disaster recovery , crisis management, and business continuity, which by themselves are insufficient to lead to resilience.

Similar to business continuity, there is a lot of emphasis in organizational resilience on understanding the environment, identifying and assessing potential risks that could disrupt the business operations, and planning to deal with the disruption if it occurs. However, while business continuity is process centric, resilience is more strategic in nature, being a holistic approach that is influenced by a unique interaction and combination of strategic and operational factors.

Additional resources

For more on business practices and culture, explore the BMC Business of IT Blog and these articles:

  • What Is Threat Remediation? Threat Remediation Explained
  • Impact, Urgency, and Priority: Understanding the Matrix
  • The State of ITSM in 2020

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Business resilience

Disruption is inevitable. how will you react.

A crisis has the potential to inflict devastating harm, impacting everything from organisational operations to financial stability and the health and safety of your teams.

How prepared were you when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe? What lessons have you learned and incorporated as you’ve navigated the massive changes of the past year? How can you position your company to weather the next crisis? 

Exploring these questions will help you begin to build the foundation for a state of informed preparedness: the ability to execute an effective response to a crisis , recover , emerge stronger and maintain business resilience.

Strengthen resilience across your enterprise

The more prepared you are to manage disruption, the less destructive and long-lived the crisis will be for your business. 

Incorporating lessons learned and leading global practices and standards, proper resilience planning can help your business withstand disruption and reduce the overall impacts of a crisis. 

In the long term, organisational resilience will strengthen your ability to respond and adapt across four key organisational pillars:

Technology and operational resilience: Sustain your core business functions and maintain the availability of key technology

Workforce resilience: Maintain a productive workforce that’s able to execute on your corporate mission

Data resilience: Maintain integrity and confidentiality of data and continue to meet your resilience and compliance goals

Financial resilience: Retain liquidity and assets

89% of business leaders recognise organisational resilience as an important strategic priority. Source: PwC’s Global Crisis and Resilience Survey 2023

Build long-term resilience so your business can thrive

Too often when a crisis erupts, an organisation’s response is disjointed. Resilience competencies and teams, structured in silos that have been developed over many years, are not aligned. 

So when a significant event occurs, the teams, methods, and technologies aren’t able to function smoothly — and often create more challenges than solutions.

Better equip your organisation to enable a cohesive response by integrating core resilience competencies, such as business continuity , disaster recovery , incident management , physical security , threat intelligence and emergency response . 

Your organisation will gain two key benefits: 

A consistent, enterprise-wide view of events and their significance 

The ability to launch a coordinated effort to respond to disruption

Anticipate. Respond. Sustain.

Enterprise Resilience is PwC’s strategic approach to help you build a flexible operating model that can adapt through disruption. 

Applying our proprietary technology, your organisation can develop the processes and adaptability you need to respond to a crisis effectively and emerge stronger. 

Anticipate and prepare: Maintain a state of informed preparedness in order to forestall compromises of mission critical functions

Respond and recover: Execute response procedures and restore mission critical functions after a major disruption

Withstand: Continue mission critical functions despite a disruption or critical outage, limiting significant impact and curtailing downtime

Sustain: Tap into knowledge from prior disruptive events to enhance your resilience processes and reduce adverse impacts in the future

Building resilience for your long-term success

Understanding how to navigate the volatility of today’s business climate is at the heart of our approach to organisational resilience. 

As a global leader in crisis management, with decades of experience guiding clients through disruption, we’ve honed our processes and tools to help you tackle any event swiftly, efficiently and successfully.

PwC’s Global Centre for Crisis and Resilience  has invested in the development of proprietary crisis assessment and management tools to help our clients understand their current capabilities and prepare to manage crises when they occur. We’ve seen firsthand how real-time, data-driven decision-making can help companies prioritise, detect and track critical issues. And we’ve built our tools aligned with international business continuity standards.

We take a holistic view of the state of your organisation’s business resilience — and as your trusted advisor, we’ll help you weather the storm, emerge stronger and build long-term resilience for the road ahead.

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Dave Stainback

Dave Stainback

Global Crisis & Resilience Co-Leader, PwC United States

Tel: +1 678 419 1355

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles

Bobbie Ramsden-Knowles

Global Crisis & Resilience Co-Leader, PwC United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)7483 422701

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The Secret to Building Resilience

  • Karen Dillon,
  • Danna Greenberg

what is business resilience plan

It’s a team sport.

The ability to bounce back from setbacks is often described as the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. Resilience has been shown to positively influence work satisfaction and engagement, as well as overall well-being, and can lower depression levels. But resilience isn’t just a kind of solitary internal “grit” that allows us to bounce back. New research shows that resilience is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and networks. We can nurture and build our resilience through a wide variety of interactions with people in our personal and professional lives. These interactions can help us to alter the magnitude of the challenge we’re facing. They can help crystalize the meaningful purpose in what we are doing or help us see a path forward to overcome a setback — these are the kinds of interactions that motivate us to persist. Are your relationships broad and deep enough to help support you when you hit setbacks? Here’s an exercise to help you think that through.

An anesthesiologist we’ll call Jacob used to describe his job as “90% boredom, 10% horror.” With a few exceptions of challenging surgeries and managing a department of several hundred physicians and nurses, most of the time, Jacob’s role was routine. But that was before the Covid-19 pandemic. Since anesthesiology is not a specialty that can resort to remote “telemedicine,” Jacob and his team entered an overwhelmed hospital day after day. “For two months, I wasn’t sleeping at night,” he shared with us. “I was sending my team into battle with inadequate protection, not even really knowing how many of them might get sick.” The burden of being responsible for both a team he cared deeply about and the lives of a huge volume of patients affected by the pandemic was crushing. Routinely putting in 16-hour days, Jacob was having to determine how and when his team would work in these trying circumstances. “There were nights and weekends when some [colleagues] called me and were crying on the phone. Let’s face it, they were scared for their lives.” And Jacob was, too.

But Jacob didn’t break. He and his team have held together as they continued to do their work throughout the pandemic. So what allowed Jacob to endure this period of extraordinary stress? Resilience.

The ability to bounce back from setbacks is often described as the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. Resilience has been shown to positively influence work satisfaction and engagement , as well as overall well-being , and can lower depression levels. There is even evidence that resilience can help protect us from physical illness . But resilience, conventional thinking assumes, is something we find within ourselves only when we are tested — a kind of solitary internal “grit” that allows those of us who are strong to bounce back.

But that’s not necessarily true. Our research (which is not yet published) shows that resilience is not purely an individual characteristic, but is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and networks. We can nurture and build our resilience through a wide variety of interactions with people in our personal and professional lives. These interactions can help us to shift or push back on work demands and alter the magnitude of the challenge we’re facing. They can help crystalize the meaningful purpose in what we are doing or help us see a path forward to overcome a setback — these are the kinds of interactions that motivate us to persist. People in our support systems can provide empathy or simply help us laugh and bolster our resilience by shifting perspective and reminding us we are not alone in the fight. In short, resilience is not something we need to find deep down inside ourselves: we can actually become more resilient in the process of connecting with others in our most challenging times.

Based on in-depth interviews with 150 leaders (five men and five women from 15 different organizations who were considered to be among their “most successful” leaders), we have defined how connections can help us become more resilient when we encounter major life or professional challenges. A well-developed network of relationships can help us rebound from setbacks by:

  • Helping us shift work or manage surges
  • Helping us to make sense of people or politics in a given situation
  • Helping us find the confidence to push back and self advocate
  • Helping us see a path forward
  • Providing empathic support so we can release negative emotions
  • Helping us to laugh at ourselves and the situation
  • Reminding us of the purpose or meaning in our work
  • Broadening us as individuals so that we maintain perspective when setbacks happen

As Jacob (who was among those we interviewed) learned in what was unquestionably the toughest period of his entire career, resilience is a team sport.

While, clearly, a portion of Jacob’s fortitude came from personal strength, our discussion with him revealed a number of ways that relationships bolstered his resilience. A patchwork of different people in his network collectively played a critical role in helping Jacob navigate and survive this extraordinary period — each offering a different perspective or helping hand in some way. First, his boss was a continual source of input and validation, boosting Jacob’s confidence as he faced unprecedented medical and leadership challenges. “She always made herself available and these interactions helped me quit worrying endlessly about different decisions.” In addition, he tapped into the strong working relationship he had with another department head to jointly manage surges in workload. The resources he was able to “borrow” from this colleague enabled him to push back on non-essential work, as well as bypass typical bureaucratic gridlock to secure resources. “At a couple of really important junctures, this helped us from getting over-run.” And a very strong chief of staff stepped in and took ownership of several work-streams put in place to help deal with Covid. For Jacob, knowing that this reliable person had those domains in hand “took stress from a 10 to an 8 many times.” Even his daily exchanges with his office manager played a critical role — she was able to find ways to laugh with him even under this stress. “It wasn’t gallows humor, but sarcastic comments about difficult people or situations that lightened things for us and made us feel on the same team,” he recalled.

Jacob was also lucky in that his home was a critical refuge for him through this time. His wife, who also had a medical background, provided an outlet to vent that yielded both empathy and possible solutions. His children even played a role that he did not realize until past the early crisis: “They were proud of me. They would tell me this, and it was better than anything else to help me buckle down and keep pushing through.”

In short, Jacob shows us that resilience is found not just in having a network of supporters, but in truly connecting with them when you need them most. It’s in the actual interactions themselves — the conversations that validate your plans, reframe your perspective on a situation, help you laugh and feel authentic with others, or just encourage you to get back up and try again because the battle is a worthy one — that we become resilient. Yes, we’re all told to build a network to help further our careers, but what’s important to understand is how essential these relationships can also be to our day-to-day emotional well-being — if we are building these relationships in the right way as we progress through our careers. Relationships may be our most undervalued resources.

But such a network won’t materialize overnight. When we talk to people who have shown exceptional resilience, it’s clear that they often have cultivated and maintained authentic connections that come from many parts of their life — not only through work, but through athletic pursuits, volunteer work, civic or religious communities, book or dinner clubs, communities of parents they’ve met through their children, and so on. Interactions in these spheres provide critical “dimensionality”, broadening their identity and “opening the aperture” on how they look at their lives. We become more (or less) resilient through our interactions with others.

Are your relationships broad and deep enough to help support you when you hit setbacks? Here’s an exercise to help you think that through.

Step 1: Identify your top resilience needs .

Below are eight common relational sources of resilience, the same ones we noted above. Our research shows that these sources are not universally or equally important to everyone. For example, some people value laughter, while others prefer empathy. In short, our resilience needs are personal and are shaped by our unique history, personality, and professional/personal context. But collectively, the relationships we develop are a toolbox that we can turn to in our most difficult times, which we can rely upon to help us navigate day-to-day life challenges.

Using the framework below, identify the top three sources of resilience that you would most like to strengthen in your life . Make a note of those that are most important for you to work on developing.

what is business resilience plan

Step 2: Plan how to expand your network .

Reflecting on the top three resilience needs you indicated, place the names of people or groups that you could invest in to further cultivate sources of resilience. Connections that yield resilience can be intentionally cultivated in two ways. First, we can broaden existing relationships by, for example, exploring non-work interests with a teammate or strengthening mutually beneficial relationships with influential work colleagues that help us push back. Second, we can initiate engagement with new groups or people to cultivate important elements of resilience — for example spiritual groups that remind us of our purpose, or affinity groups that allow us to laugh. Broadening our network helps us develop dimensionality in our lives — a rich variety of relationships and connections that help us grow, that can provide perspective on our struggles, and that can offer us a stronger sense of purpose.

These groups may come from any and all walks of life — athletic pursuits, spiritual associations, nonprofit board work, community organizing groups around social, environmental, or political issues, etc. Engaging in nonwork groups (particularly board work, social action, and community organizing groups) helps us develop resilience in our work life as well. Exposure to a diverse group of people allows us to learn different ways of managing, leading, and handling crises, and helps us develop different relational skills such as negotiating with various stakeholders. It also helps us cultivate empathy and perspective that we carry back into our work, among other benefits. In summary, meaningful investment in non-work relationships broadens the toolkit one can rely upon to manage setbacks when they arise.

One critical insight from our interviews is that relying on your network in times of transition matters a great deal. When people told us stories of significant transitions — moves, job losses, role expansions, or family changes — they tended to separate into one of two groups. One group tended to lean into the transition and relied on existing relationships to work through the ambiguity and anxiety they were experiencing. This group also used the transition to reach out to one or two new groups such as a working parents group, a newcomers group, or a work-based coaching circle. In contrast, the second group operated with a mindset that they just needed to absorb the transition and closed in on their circle. They felt overwhelmed and said they would lean into activities when they had time in the future. Over the ensuing 18 months, this group became a smaller version of themselves and often drifted away from the connections that had been so important to their lives.

Covid has created a significant transition for us all. The importance of building and maintaining your connections has never been clearer. For most of us, the challenges and setbacks we are experiencing in work and life during this pandemic have been relentless. But you’re not alone in this battle. You can build resilience. Start by understanding the critical importance of growing, maintaining, and tapping a diverse network to help you ride out the storm.

Support and funding for the research behind this article was received from the Innovation Resource Center for Human Resources.

  • Rob Cross is the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and a senior vice president of research at the Institute for Corporate Productivity. He is the coauthor of The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Add Up—and What to Do About It (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023) and author of Beyond Collaboration Overload (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021).
  • Karen Dillon is a former editor of Harvard Business Review and coauthor of The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems — and What to Do About It (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023). She is also coauthor of three books with Clayton Christensen, including the New York Times best-seller How Will You Measure Your Life?
  • DG Danna Greenberg is the Walther H. Carpenter Professor of Management and Organizations at Babson College. Her latest book, Maternal Optimism: Forging Positive Paths through Work and Motherhood , explores the uniqueness of each working mother’s journey to integrate career and family.

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What is Business Resilience? A Complete Overview

Read this blog to understand what Business Resilience is, why it is important, what it includes, how to develop it, and what the guidelines and standards are for ensuring it. In this blog, we will also compare Business Resilience with Business Continuity and answer some frequently asked questions.

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Businesses today face numerous challenges, from natural disasters and cybersecurity threats to economic downturns and global crises. In such a volatile environment, the ability of a company to adapt and withstand these disruptions is crucial. That is what Business Resilience is all about.  

If you want to learn more about it, this blog is for you. In this blog, you will learn what Business Resilience is, why it is so important and how to develop a Resilience plan for your business. 

Table of Contents 

1) Understanding Business Resilience 

2) Importance of Business Resilience 

3) Inclusions in a Business Resilience plan 

4) Steps for developing a Business Resilience plan 

5) Guidelines and standards for ensuring Business Resilience 

6) Difference between Business Resilience & Business Continuity 

7) Conclusion 

Understanding Business Resilience 

Business Resilience is not just about surviving a crisis but also involves anticipating, preventing, and reducing the effects of potential threats. It encompasses all facets of an organisation, including its personnel, procedures, technology, assets, and reputation. Moreover, Business Resilience isn't an isolated event; it's an ongoing journey of learning, enhancement, and innovation. 

  

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Importance of Business Resilience 

From protecting core values to reducing risks, Business Resilience is crucial for many reasons. Let's explore some of them below:  

Importance of Business Resilience 

1) Protecting core values: It helps an organisation to protect its core values, vision, and mission. By maintaining these principles even during times of crisis, a business can uphold its identity and remain true to its founding principles. 

2) Sustaining competitive advantage: Business Resilience allows an organisation to maintain its competitive gain and market share. While competitors may falter during disruptions, resilient businesses can continue to serve their customers, retaining their market position. 

3) Adaptation to changing needs: It enables an organisation to react swiftly and effectively to changing customer needs and expectations. Resilient companies can pivot their strategies and offerings to meet evolving customer demands, ensuring long-term customer satisfaction. 

4) Seizing opportunities: Resilience equips organisations to seize new opportunities and create value, even in the face of adversity. By being agile and adaptable, businesses can identify and capitalise on emerging trends and markets. 

5) Risk reduction: It reduces the risk of various negative outcomes, including financial losses, legal liabilities, operational failures, reputational damage, and the loss of trust and confidence among customers, partners, and stakeholders. 

6) Employee well-being: Business Resilience enhances employees' morale, motivation, and productivity. Employees who feel secure in their workplace are likelier to contribute their best efforts and remain committed to the organisation's success. 

7) Fostering a resilient culture: Resilience promotes a culture of collaboration, creativity, and resilience within an organisation. Employees who are trained in resilience practices can work together effectively to navigate challenges and find innovative solutions. 

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Inclusions in a Business Resilience plan 

A Business Resilience plan is a document that outlines the strategies, actions, and resources that an organisation will use to achieve its Business Resilience objectives. A Business Resilience plan should include the following elements: 

1) Business Impact Analysis (BIA): This involves identifying the organisation's critical functions, processes, and resources and assessing the potential threats and impacts that could affect them. The BIA provides insights into what parts of the business are most vulnerable during disruptions. 

2) Risk assessment: It evaluates the likelihood and severity of the identified threats and impacts, prioritising them based on their potential effect on the organisation's objectives. This helps organisations allocate resources to address the most significant risks first. 

3) Risk mitigation strategy: This strategy defines the measures and controls that will be put in place to prevent, reduce, or transfer risks. It outlines the proactive steps an organisation will take to minimise the impact of potential disruptions. 

4) Business Continuity Plan (BCP): The BCP specifies the procedures and arrangements that will be activated to ensure the continuity of critical functions and processes in the event of a disruption. It outlines the immediate actions to be taken to maintain essential operations. 

5) Crisis Management Plan (CMP): This plan outlines communication and escalation protocols to follow during a crisis. It also specifies the roles and responsibilities of the Crisis Management team. Moreover, it ensures a coordinated response when faced with unexpected events. 

6) Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP): The DRP details the steps and resources that will be utilised to restore the organisation's normal operations after a disruption. It focuses on recovery efforts to get the business back on track. 

7) Testing and review schedule: This schedule defines the frequency and methods for testing and reviewing the Business Resilience plan. It outlines the process for updating and improving the plan using the feedback and lessons learned from simulations and real-life incidents. 

These components together form a comprehensive Business Resilience plan that prepares organisations to face and overcome disruptions effectively. 

Steps for developing a Business Resilience plan 

Business Resilience is completely different from Emotional Resilience. A Business Resilience plan enables organisations to proactively address risks and disruptions effectively. Let's explore the steps involved in developing one: 

Steps for developing a Business Resilience plan

1) Establish the plan scope: Begin by defining the Business Resilience plan's scope, objectives, and governance. Assign roles and responsibilities to the stakeholders involved, ensuring clear accountability. 

2) Conduct risk assessment: Perform a thorough BIA and risk assessment. Identify and prioritise critical functions, processes, and resources, as well as potential threats and their impacts on these components. 

3) Develop Risk mitigation strategy: Create a risk mitigation strategy that outlines measures and procedures to prevent, reduce, or recover from identified threats and impacts. Develop a comprehensive BCP specifying how critical functions and processes will be maintained during disruptions. 

4) Create recovery plans: Craft a CMP to define actions and arrangements for effectively managing and resolving crises. Additionally, prepare a DRP detailing the steps and resources necessary to restore normal operations following a disruption. 

5) Test and review the plan: Implement testing and review procedures to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the Business Resilience plan. Find any gaps or weaknesses that require attention. 

6) Update and improve the plan: Continuously enhance the Business Resilience plan based on feedback and lessons learned from testing, review processes, and internal or external environment changes. Ensure that the plan remains adaptive and relevant to evolving circumstances. 

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Guidelines and Standards for ensuring Business Resilience 

In the pursuit of Business Resilience, organisations often turn to established guidelines and standards that serve as beacons of best practices. These guidelines and standards provide organisations with valuable frameworks and best practices to enhance their Business Resilience. Let's explore some of them below: 

1) ISO 22301:2019: This standard outlines the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and improving a Business Continuity Management System (BCMS). It offers a framework for organisations to enhance their resilience against disruptions. 

2) ASIS SPC.1-2009: It is a standard published by ASIS International that provides guidelines for developing and implementing a risk assessment and management program. It focuses on finding and mitigating security risks to protect assets and operations. 

3) ISO 27001:2013: ISO 27001 sets forth the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and improving an Information Security Management System (ISMS). A robust ISMS helps protect critical information assets, contributing to overall Business Resilience. 

4) ISO 22316:2017: It is an international standard that offers guidance on organisational resilience. It provides principles and a framework for enhancing an organisation's ability to anticipate, respond to, and recover from disruptions, whether related to security, operational, or other risks. 

Difference between Business Resilience & Business Continuity 

Business Resilience and Business Continuity are related but distinct concepts. Business Continuity is a subset of Business Resilience. It focuses on ensuring the continuity of an organisation's critical functions and processes during a disruption. Business Resilience, on the other hand, is a broader concept. It entails adapting to change, recovering from disruptions, and ensuring uninterrupted delivery of products and services to stakeholders. 

Conclusion 

We hope you read and understand everything about Business Resilience and its importance. In today's unpredictable business landscape, Business Resilience is not just a luxury; it's a necessity. Organisations can minimise downtime, protect their reputation, and ensure long-term sustainability by anticipating, preparing for, and adapting to disruptions. 

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Frequently Asked Questions

A Business Resilience plan should include risk assessment, business impact analysis, response and recovery strategies, training and testing, and continuous improvement processes.  

Business Resilience is beneficial for organisations of all sizes. While the specific strategies and resources may vary, small businesses can also benefit by identifying risks, developing plans, and building the capacity to withstand disruptions. This will help them thrive in the face of adversity.  

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February 2017

Environmental stewardship and sustainability have become woven into most facility management operations to the point where sustainable operations are almost synonymous with operational excellence.  However, challenges still remain to maintain facilities with climate change, severe weather events, and international unrest.  As climate change adaptation planning is becoming more important and more recognized, sustainability leaders are taking a broader view of sustainability planning.  With the help of 100 Resilient Cities funding, Resilience Officers are being added to sustainability offices across the country.  The increasing frequency of severe weather events requires us to be able to respond and recover, linking long term sustainability and livability to business resilience planning.  Facility managers and building owners need to understand what business resilience is and how to incorporate business resilience into their long-term planning efforts.

#1 What business resilience means to your organization

What is business resilience.

Business resilience is the ability to rapidly adapt and respond to business disruptions, safeguard people and assets, while maintaining continuous business operations.  Business resilience planning provides guidance for ensuring the ability of personnel to respond, resume, and restore to a pre-determined level of operation following a disruption.  The facility management business resilience bottom line is to enable your customer to continue their mission.  Business resilience planning could make or break your organization.

The key to resilience is flexibility

Start with what business resilience means to your organization.  What is the mission and vision of your organization?  Who are your customers?  It is important to determine how much you can bend before you break.  Some parts of daily operations in your organization are more flexible than others.  There are a lot of moving parts in your organization.  When it breaks down, which areas need the oil first?  Business resilience planning relies on identifying essential functions and prioritizing what is critical to be performed in times of distress. Resilient organizations have secured their mission-critical and time-sensitive business functions because they are the least flexible.  Just as it is important to know which functions, resources and personnel are needed to keep you in business, it is important to know what can push you out of business as well.  Effective business resilience planning includes establishing an acceptable minimum level of operations.  A critical step in becoming a resilient organization is understanding what your vulnerabilities are so that you can prepare to stay in business.

#2 FMs play a central role in business resilience

The evolving fm role.

FMs, as you well know, are trying to keep up with competing priorities, evolving technology, and the drive for corporate social responsibility.  What is your purpose as an FM in your organization?  Is it creating and maintaining an environment that will enable your organization to fulfill its mission?  Business resilience may not be written in your job description, but it is likely part of your job and on your mind, even if you don’t know it yet.

Let’s get personal

There is a lot at risk without business resilience planning.  People’s livelihood, careers, and safety are at stake.  The upside is that it gives everyone a reason to get involved and play their part in business resilience.  Everyone from every corner of the organization plays a role in business resilience and has something to benefit from the continuity of business-as-usual.  FMs play a part at every stage of business resilience in creating and maintaining operational plans, budgets, trainings, drills, etc.  You enable your customer to continue their mission.  It is to your advantage to adopt a long-term view of business operations and investments.  The facility manager plays a unique role in business resilience, specifically in helping the organization create workplace environments that aid the mission and help the business continue in the case of disruptive events.  The facility management team can become facilitators of the business resilience process by preparing the facilities and the workforce with the right amount of preparation, resources and processes to reestablish business-as-usual as quickly and safely as possible.

#3 Natural disasters are not the only cause of business disruption

Let’s talk about the weather.

Much preparation goes into preparing for natural disasters—and for good reason.  What is less-understood and often overlooked are other events that threaten to disrupt our everyday business operations.  Natural disasters didn’t even make the top 7 most concerning threats to business operations according to building owners, risk managers, and building operators:

mar17_1

Though naturally-occurring and weather-related events are something to highlight, there are other disruptions that need to be addressed.  To know best which threats your organization is most susceptible to it is important to understand the criticality of individual operations in your organization.  Prioritizing business functions through a formal risk assessment can lead to a smooth understanding of risk at large and paints a better picture of what it will take to become more resilient.  A risk assessment identifies and analyzes business risks and associated threats.  The objective is to understand the effectiveness of existing risk controls and identify additional risk treatments to decrease the likelihood or severity of disruptions to the organization’s essential business functions.  Going through a formal risk assessment process can be a very effective way to prioritize your business resilience planning efforts.

#4 An emergency response plan is not enough

Most facilities groups are familiar with emergency preparedness and many probably have some documentation on site as far as what to do in case of an emergency.  But, are you truly ready to efficiently resume business after an emergency or a major disruption?  Let’s take an example.  It’s 4:00pm on a typical Tuesday.  A section of seemingly sturdy roof atop the 8 th floor caved in due to heavy snow and ice accumulation and is now leaking water into the server room.  Local authorities have been notified and have ordered an immediate evacuation of the entire building.  Your designated emergency team begins an orderly evacuation per your documented evacuation procedures.  Everyone is gathered at the designated offsite gathering place just as planned.  Roll call is taken and, to your relief, everyone is safely out of the building and accounted for.  The Fire Marshal indicates the building is closed indefinitely due to reasons beyond your control.  You can’t retrieve any items for a few days and a full re-occupation date of the building is unknown at this time.   Now what?   Do you have a plan in place to continue business?  You won’t be the only one asking this question—so will your 450 employees, and your customers.

It is times like these that your business continuity plan becomes a lifesaver.  An effective business continuity plan is the cornerstone of effective planning efforts and will frame your ability to respond, resume, and recover.  Key items to include in a business continuity plan include:

  • Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
  • Essential Functions (defined and prioritized)
  • Vital Records/Resources Plan
  • Risk Assessment (RA)
  • Risk Management Plan
  • Readiness Handbook
  • Alternate Site Procedures
  • Emergency Response Plan
  • Communications Plan
  • Delegation of Authority
  • Incident Command Structure
  • Succession Plans
  • Return to Normal Operations Plan

Every organization has a different structure and culture and creative, innovative solutions should be utilized to meet the needs of foreseen and unforeseen business disruptions.

 #5 Business resilience planning doesn’t have to break the bank

Business interruption costs however just might.

How long can you afford to be down?  Although the probability of a major disruption may be low, the impact of disruptions—even minor—can be significant on profit and productivity.  Without business resilience planning, recovery will take longer and be costlier.  Think about what one hour of downtime means for your organization.  An hour of downtime can be costly to an organization of any size, but the impact of the hour of downtime is extended into the future as it can take much more time to resume business-as-usual and to fully recover.  The statistics are daunting.  According to FEMA, disasters typically claim 40% of small businesses [1] .  1 in 4 small and medium sized businesses hit by a major storm do not reopen [2] and small businesses lose an average of $3,000 a day after closing due to a major storm.  Effective planning can decrease our risks of these casualties and planning doesn’t have to break the bank.  Few costs are typically needed to establish an effective business resilience plan.  The costs of planning are typically measured in man-hours and are far outweighed by the opportunity costs of not planning.  Significant costs are most common with failing physical infrastructure or IT needs and are less-common.  When needed, consultants can provide necessary expertise and help streamline efforts to maximize benefits and keep a consistent vision.

Careful business resilience planning can mitigate the impacts of a disruption and allow your business to continue to function or to return to normal more quickly.  In addition, effective business continuity planning has the potential to improve overall performance and minimize corporate risk.  Perhaps the most important effect is the ability for the Facility Manager to enable its customer to continue its mission.  Show your value and your commitment to the organization by advocating for business resilience.  Show your customers the confidence that your service is dependable and can be relied upon at all times.  When you take into account all of these important positive impacts, business resilience planning can have a positive financial impact as it decreases the potential negative productivity and financial impact that a disruptive event can have.  Although the threats may have a low probability, through business resilience planning efforts, you can identify what the impacts of those threats are and put a plan in place to reduce those impacts.  If you consider the potential financial impact of damage to your reputation, the return on investment in business resilience planning is almost immediate.

mar17_2

Part Two of this article, on operationalizing resilience in facilities. Click here to go to it.

[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hurricane-sandy/hurricane-sandy-year-business-article-1.1493143

[2] http://safetymanagement.eku.edu/resources/infographics/top-natural-disasters-that-threaten-businesses/

Facility Engineering Associates, P.C. (FEA)  is an engineering and facility management consulting firm supporting owners and managers of existing facilities. FEA was founded in 1992 on the principle that there is a better way to manage the built environment by balancing the challenges of providing a safe, secure, and healthy environment; maintaining an aging infrastructure; and improving how the FM organization operates. We help our clients improve the way they manage, operate, maintain, and fund the built environment to enable facilities that are safer, healthier, resilient, productive and cost-effective.

*The information above is for general purpose only and subject to copyright protection.

* The articles appearing in this section are written by the organizations as stated with each paper; FMLink is not responsible for the accuracy of their content. Should anyone wish to contact FMLink regarding any article, please e-mail FMLink at [email protected] . Contact information for each organization is provided inside each paper.

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What is a Business Resiliency Plan?

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The ability to adapt is a necessity in today’s ever-changing world, and how well an organization can respond to change can have a significant impact on long-term growth and success. The term “business resilience” is often used to refer to business continuity and vice versa, but failing to recognize and approach business resilience as the related, but more broad, strategy that it is, can result in a missed opportunity to position your organization for optimal success.

What is Business Resiliency?

James Crask, the convenor of the group responsible for developing the ISO standards for business security and resilience, states that “a resilient organization is one that is able to adapt to change, is aware of where its vulnerabilities lie, and has plans in place to respond should things go wrong.” While business continuity plans focus on being prepared to face, respond to, and recover from known risks, resilience plans take things a few steps further.

A BCP resilience plan prepares an organization to face risks both known and unknown.

Therefore, it comprises both business continuity and risk management efforts, as well as other policies and procedures to prepare for challenges and threats that could emerge in the future.

What Risks Should a Business Resiliency Plan Consider?

Being able to adapt quickly is a central element of business resiliency. But what should your organization consider when developing a business resiliency plan to best prepare for the unforeseeable? All risks—known and unknown, existing and potential. Let’s take a look.

Known Risks

Every organization has some number of potential threats, disruptions, or other risks that have enough potential to occur to be a concern. This is where a business continuity plan comes in.

A business continuity plan considers the most critical functions and assets of the organization, identifies primary risks, and details procedures for preventing, mitigating, responding to, and recovering from disruptions. The exact details of a business continuity program will vary from one organization to the next but will plan for a range of potential incidents, including:

  • Cyberattacks
  • Network outages
  • System failures
  • Supply chain disruptions
  • Natural disasters
  • Personnel shortages

Having a comprehensive, adaptable plan in place will prepare for high-risk and high-probability disruptions and threats—and lay the foundation for preparing for their unknown counterparts.

Unknown Risks

How can your organization prepare for risks that don’t exist yet but may arise in the future?

A flexible business continuity plan does play a critical role here, but it needs to incorporate an organized approach to governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) to be effective:

  • Governance assures processes and procedures are aligned with your goals
  • Risk management ensures seamless identification and mitigation of risks
  • Compliance ensures applicable regulations are being followed, completely

A mature, integrated approach to GRC will facilitate clarity, communication, and efficiency which will, in turn, better position the organization to adapt to new concerns as they emerge.

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Workforce Readiness and Wellness

Personnel safety and shortages should be addressed in your business continuity plan. But resilience can be impacted even in the absence of an incident. Factors to consider include:

  • Education and awareness – Do personnel have sufficient training opportunities? Training is essential to helping keep professional skills current and support the awareness of and compliance with security standards, operational procedures, and organizational policies.
  • Health and wellness – Are there initiatives in place to ensure healthy working conditions and to support the long-term wellness of personnel? Physical and mental health can impact productivity even under ideal conditions, so supporting employee health can contribute to the long-term success of the organization.
  • Communication – Is there sufficient multidirectional communication throughout the organization? Do personnel have access to leadership, and is critical information disseminated promptly? Communication is crucial to an organization’s success at all times, especially in the face of unexpected challenges.

Ultimately, a rewarding professional environment that provides personnel with a sense of security will have better retention and engagement. This will position the organization to be better able to attract talent down the road, mitigating the risk of skill gaps and shortages.

Financial Stability

Disruptions can lead to financial loss, but financial stability is worth considering under any circumstances. In the face of financial hardship, you should ask these questions:

  • What organizational activities are most critical?
  • What processes, procedures, and personnel are most essential to achieving organizational goals?
  • What resources are necessary to remain in compliance with legal and regulatory requirements?

A resilient organization will be prepared to respond to shifts in demand for what they provide, the emergence of new competitors, and other changes that could impact its finances.

The Reputation of the Organization

An organization with a poor reputation is unlikely to have much hope for a bright future. Consider your organization’s relationship with the public and what they count on you for:

  • Does your organization provide services that people rely on day-to-day?
  • Are you entrusted to handle personal information or other sensitive data?
  • What image does your organization convey and uphold?

Consider how the situations your organization could face might also affect the community you serve, stakeholders, and other relevant parties. Ensure your business resiliency plan includes measures for protecting the reputation and image of your organization by mitigating negative impacts on other parties and communicating critical information promptly and responsibly.

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Business Resilience Strategies

A comprehensive business resiliency plan addresses several potential concerns and, therefore, must employ a variety of strategies. Some of the most crucial to consider include:

  • Robust cybersecurity – Cyberattacks are among the most significant threats to an organization’s resiliency, so implementing an effective cybersecurity program that is ready to evolve in the face of emerging threats is essential. 
  • Diversified technical infrastructure – A rigid IT infrastructure can make it much more difficult to respond to the need for change. Evaluate the application of virtual infrastructure, the use of multiple cloud services, and other emerging technologies as they become available to establish fallbacks that will help keep operations on track in the case of an outage or other failure.
  • Evolving workflows – Technology and globalization have changed the way people work, and that trend is only likely to continue. Establishing procedures that account for the way workflows may change in the future can help improve flexibility now and provide resiliency in the future.
  • Establishing a strong organizational culture – An organization with an established culture, clear norms and expectations, and a strong sense of identity will be better equipped to face unexpected challenges.

Benefits of Business Resiliency

Being prepared to face and overcome acute incidents such as cyberattacks , natural disasters, and supply-chain disruptions are all critical to an organization’s success. An effective business resiliency plan will establish the policies and procedures that you can depend on to:

  • Give your organization a competitive edge
  • Foster and support a healthy, satisfied, productive workforce
  • Support your organization’s ability to achieve its objectives
  • Foster and protect a positive image and reputation 

Coupled with robust cybersecurity, business resiliency will keep your organization operating at its maximum capacity regardless of any challenges it faces—or will face. And the best way to leverage these benefits is working with a quality managed services provider, like RSI Security.

Position Your Organization for the Future with RSI

An effective business resiliency strategy requires ongoing analysis of your organization and the consideration of risks and other factors across several domains. RSI Security’s dedicated incident management team will help set your organization up to succeed in the unknown conditions of the future so you can remain focused on your mission.

Contact RSI Security today to assess your organization’s resilience.

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RSI Security

RSI Security is the nation’s premier cybersecurity and compliance provider dedicated to helping organizations achieve risk-management success. We work with some of the world’s leading companies, institution and governments to ensure the safety of their information and their compliance with applicable regulation. We also are a security and compliance software ISV and stay at the forefront of innovative tools to save assessment time, increase compliance and provide additional safeguard assurance. With a unique blend of software based automation and managed services, RSI Security can assist all sizes of organizations in managing IT governance, risk management and compliance efforts (GRC). RSI Security is an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) and Qualified Security Assessor (QSA).

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Business Resilience Plan Template

Business Resilience Plan Template

What Is A Business Resilience Plan?

A business resilience plan is a set of strategies, procedures, and processes that help organizations prepare for and respond to emergency situations (from pandemics to natural disasters). It outlines the steps to be taken in the event of a disaster or disruption, providing business continuity and protecting the organization’s assets and reputation. It also helps organizations identify and prioritize potential risks and develop mitigation strategies to minimize their impact and return to normal operations as fast as possible.

What's Included In This Business Resilience Plan Template?

  • 3 focus areas
  • 6 objectives

Once you have set your template, you can also create dashboards for real-time performance monitoring.

And yes - you get free access with no credit card required. ✅

Who Is The Business Resilience Plan Template For?

The Business Resilience Plan template is incredibly versatile and caters to organizations of all sizes, from startups and small businesses to large enterprises.

For small businesses , the template provides a scalable approach that aligns with their available resources and requirements, empowering them to build robust strategies for maintaining continuity and minimizing disruptions, even with limited budgets and personnel. Larger organizations can benefit from the template's ability to handle the complexities associated with multiple teams, departments, and locations. It encourages cross-functional collaboration, ensuring a unified approach to resilience planning.

The template's flexibility also allows it to adapt to different industries . It acknowledges that each sector faces unique risks and regulatory requirements. Whether you're in finance, hospitality, energy, or any other field, the template can be customized to address industry-specific challenges.

It can be used by teams in different business units and functions. With this template, risk management teams can create and implement measures to ensure resilience, but it can also be used by any employee, from staff members or team members to senior management.

👉🏻The template will guide you with an easy framework to help identify, measure, and monitor potential risks and develop an action plan to mitigate them.

Business Resilience And Business Continuity Plan - How Are They Related?

Business resilience and business continuity plan go hand in hand, working together to safeguard organizations in the face of disruptions. While they have distinct roles, their shared objective is to ensure the survival and success of a business.

Business resilience is all about adaptability and thriving in the face of challenges. It encompasses a broader perspective, focusing on proactively identifying risks, developing mitigation strategies, and fostering a culture of preparedness. It's like building a strong foundation that can weather any storm, ensuring the long-term sustainability of the organization.

A business continuity plan (BCP) , on the other hand, is a practical and operational approach to maintaining critical functions during and after a disruption. It's the tactical side of things, outlining specific procedures and actions to keep the business running smoothly. A BCP includes emergency response, crisis management, backup systems, communication protocols, and recovery processes.

Think of it this way: business resilience sets the stage, while the business continuity plan takes center stage when a disruption occurs. Together, they form a powerful duo. By integrating a well-designed BCP into the broader resilience strategy, organizations can effectively manage risks, adapt to changes, and ensure their long-term viability.

📚Recommended read: 16 Business Continuity Plan Templates For Every Business

How To Use This Business Resilience Plan Template

Follow the following step-by-step instructions to make the most out of your template and ensure you build a successful plan to achieve business resilience.

1. Define clear examples of your focus areas

Focus areas are the broad categories on which your business resilience plan should focus. By addressing these areas, businesses can proactively identify and mitigate risks, ensure the continuity of critical functions, and inspire stakeholder confidence. Each focus area should have clearly defined objectives, actions, and measurable targets (KPIs) that can be used to assess the success of the plan.

Consider the following examples as inspiration to define the focus areas for your business resilience plan:

  • Risk Assessment and Management : Assess potential risks and vulnerabilities, including natural disasters, cybersecurity threats, supply chain disruptions, and others. Develop mitigation strategies and protocols for ongoing risk monitoring.
  • Business Impact Analysis : Analyze the impact of disruptions on critical business functions, operations, and financial stability. Identify key resources, prioritize continuity measures, and minimize impact on customers, employees, and stakeholders.
  • Incident Response and Crisis Management : Establish business processes and protocols for incident response, defining roles, communication channels, and decision-making processes. Test response plans through drills, ensuring coordination.
  • Business Continuity Management : Develop a comprehensive BCP for critical function continuity, including alternate facility and alternate site options, redundant systems, data backup, and recovery measures.
  • IT Disaster Recovery Strategy : Create robust IT (information technology) recovery plans, implementing data backup, redundancy, and recovery procedures. Enhance cybersecurity measures against threats and breaches.
  • Supply Chain Resilience : Evaluate supply chain resilience, collaborate with critical suppliers, diversify, and implement contingency plans to minimize disruptions. ‍
  • Employee Preparedness and Training : Train employees in emergency management and procedures, crisis communication, and business continuity protocols. Foster a resilient culture and employee participation in preparedness efforts. ‍
  • Communication and Stakeholder Management : Develop a communication plan for timely and accurate information dissemination. Establish protocols, designate spokespersons, and update stakeholders on recovery efforts.
👉🏻These are just a few examples of focus areas you can use for your own business resilience plan. Our Strategy Experts at Cascade recommend selecting 3 to 5 key areas to prioritize. In our Business Resilience Plan Template, we provide focus areas such as Business Continuity, Risk Management, and Recovery . These areas can be easily customized to align with your organization's specific needs.

📚Recommended read : Supply Chain Risk Management Examples

2. Think about the objectives that could fall under that focus area

Consider the objectives that can be associated with the chosen focus area. Objectives serve as specific goals that contribute to the overall success of the plan.

Examples of objectives within the Business Resilience Plan Template are:

(Focus Area) Recovery

(Objective) Streamline recovery processes to minimize downtime

(Objective) Enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of recovery efforts

👉🏻Remember to tailor the objectives to your own focus areas in your plan.

3. Set measurable targets (KPIs) to tackle the objective

KPIs , or Key Performance Indicators, are tangible benchmarks that can be used to measure the progress and success of the plan. Effective KPIs are specific, measurable, attainable, and defined within a certain timeframe.

Examples of time-bound KPIs for the Recovery focus area:

  • (KPI) Reduce recovery time from 24 hours to 12 hours within the next six months
  • (KPI) Increase recovery effectiveness by 20% within the fiscal year
👉🏻Think of KPIs that will allow you to easily gauge the progress and success (or failure) of your objectives.

🤔Don’t know where to start? Check out our articles:

  • How to Write KPIs in 4 Steps + Free KPI Template
  • 84 Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Examples (Tips + FREE templates)

4. Implement related projects to achieve the KPIs

Projects , also known as actions, encompass the steps taken to implement the plan and accomplish the identified KPIs. These projects should be realistic and customized to suit the specific requirements of the organization.

Here are some project examples to help you build your business resilience plan:

  • Enhance employee preparedness through targeted training programs
  • Strengthen data protection with updated security measures
  • Expand supplier network to mitigate dependencies and ensure continuity
  • Develop contingency budgeting and risk-based insurance coverage
  • Establish effective communication channels and share contact information
  • Upgrade infrastructure for robust hard drive backups
💡Pro Tip : Projects must be related to your KPIs, objectives, and focus areas since they’re the actions you’ll take to achieve your goal.

Define your projects following this framework/structure:

Focus Area : Supply Chain Resilience

Objective : Minimize supply chain disruptions

KPI : Reduce average delivery time by 20%

Project : Implement a vendor performance tracking system to monitor and improve supply chain efficiency, ensuring timely deliveries and reducing lead time.

5. Utilize Cascade Strategy Execution Platform to see faster results from your strategy

In today's business landscape, organizations face the challenge of answering critical economic questions and adapting to changing circumstances. However, the ability to access and analyze the right information promptly is essential for informed decision-making.

That’s where Cascade comes in!

As the world's leading strategy execution platform , Cascade revolutionizes the way businesses operate, enabling you to navigate complexity with ease. By seamlessly connecting metrics, initiatives, and investments, Cascade's platform empowers swift decision-making based on actual performance.

With Cascade, you can bring order to the chaos, gain unparalleled visibility, and make better decisions faster. This agility is crucial for building resilient businesses that thrive in uncertainty.

  • Map your business . Gain a comprehensive understanding of your current performance and the factors driving it. This insight empowers you to make informed and adaptive decisions.
  • Connect the dots. Centralize visibility over your execution engine, identify dependencies, and proactively address risks. Strengthen your chances of success by streamlining your execution processes.
  • Maximize returns . Optimize your business operations by untangling complexity, reallocating resources, and making efficient investments. Achieve cost savings and operational efficiency while driving growth.

Achieve business resilience with Cascade

Explore the unique product features designed to help you achieve business resilience:

  • Relationships : Prepare for the unexpected by tracking program dependencies, blockers, and risks that may arise on your strategic journey.

Example of an Alignment Map showing Relationships in Cascade strategy execution platform

  • Integrations : Consolidate your business systems under one unified platform, enhancing clarity in strategic decision-making. Seamlessly import real-time context through Cascade's extensive library of +1,000 native, third-party connectors (Zapier/PA), and custom integrations.
  • Dashboards & Reports : Gain a comprehensive view of your strategic performance and easily share it with stakeholders, suppliers, and contractors. Evaluate revenue-generating initiatives against cost-impacting factors to make informed decisions.

Example of a Dashboard in Cascade strategy execution platform

Related Templates

  • BCP - Business Continuity Plan Template
  • Business Continuity and Disaster Preparedness Plan
  • Business Resilience Plan Template for Supply Chain
  • Risk Assessment Plan Template

🔍 Didn’t find what you were looking for? Check out our Template Library with thousands of templates to help you streamline your strategic planning process.

🆘Need extra help? Book a guided 1:1 tour with one of our Cascade in-house strategy execution experts.

What is a disaster recovery plan?

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented approach outlining processes and strategies for recovering critical systems, data, and operations after a disruptive incident. Its goal is to minimize the impact of a disaster, restore essential functions quickly, and ensure business continuity. The plan includes steps for response, recovery, and restoration, covering aspects like data backup, infrastructure restoration, and communication protocols. Regular testing and updates are essential for its effectiveness. With a solid DRP, organizations can minimize downtime, protect assets, and swiftly recover from disruptions.

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Business Resilience

Business Resilience in 2020

Emily Barr June 22, 2020 Leaders , Performance Culture

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In a current global situation where countless businesses are facing an unprecedented degree of disruption, those companies that have implemented a strong business resilience plan are seeing the benefits clearer than ever.

What is Business Resilience?

Business resilience is defined as the ability that a company has to quickly adapt to disruptions, while maintaining continuous business operations and safeguarding its people, assets, and overall brand equity and image.

It is an enterprise-wide term that encompasses both crisis management and business continuity, responding to all types of risk that a company may face. As well as providing a framework to address the consequences of major incidents, business resilience also relates to the ability of the company to adapt to new environments and circumstances that follow the incident.

When Does Business Resilience Become Important?

Success hinges on the company’s ability to accurately predict the next economic cycle, entrusting economic experts to anticipate macroeconomic events, and putting business resilience plans on the backburner if the threat level is deemed low.

Now more than ever, organizations are feeling the negative effects of neglecting their business resilience strategy. Current research will point to outdated lists of potential business operations threats, that mention somewhere along the line the threat of pandemics, amidst other unpredictable risks such as natural disasters or terrorist-related incidents. Because of the catastrophic nature of these risks, many organizations did not prioritize implementing business resilience strategies on a large, long-term scale, simply due to the complete unpredictability that such an occurrence would happen in the organization’s lifetime. As a result, companies all over the globe took large, long-term financial and reputational hits once COVID-19 initiated one of the largest economic downturns in modern history.

However, business resilience is not a strategy unique to global economic disruptions on a pandemic scale. While businesses with strong resilience strategies in place are able to bounce back faster from such a challenging and disruptive obstacle, business resilience is integral in day-to-day operations as well. Ultimately, your business is and always will remain uncertain. There is no checklist of organizational maneuvering that will ensure your company can whether any storm, because the storms themselves are at their very nature, unpredictable. While a global pandemic is at the forefront of many companies’ problem-solving strategies right now, some other areas that have the potential to cause long-term harm at any point, include:

  • Natural disasters
  • Economic disruption and market turbulence
  • Terrorist-related incidents
  • Cyber-crime and cyber terrorism
  • Civil emergencies, strikes, protests, and similar actions
  • Compliance failures
  • Disruptive technological advances
  • Technological failure
  • Supply chain failure

In order to ensure the resilience of your organization in the face of these varied risks, it is critical to have a strong business resilience strategy. But where do you begin?

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Steps to Ensure Good Business Resilience

Business resilience plans are more than abstract understandings of what a company should do in face of imminent risks. A strong, thorough business resilience strategy should encompass four general strands:

  • A business continuity plan , which plans out and rehearses a response to all identified, likely, or anticipated operational disruptions and risks.
  • A disaster recovery plan , which provides the organization a strategy to recover from real disasters.
  • A value protection plan , which ensures shareholder value and stakeholder relations are protected in times of disruption.
  • An exploitation plan , which enables the company to identify, and exploit, commercial opportunities that may present themselves during times of substantial disruption.

An Emergency Response Plan is Not Enough

As previously mentioned, the risks facing the long-term financial stability of an organization are much more varied than widespread disruptions that cause macroeconomic downturns globally. Your organization may be prepared to face direct risks in the moment, but a critical component of business resilience is a structured plan of action for dealing with unpredicted circumstances after the fact.

For example, if there were to be a sudden collapse of a floor into an office space, or a water leak into a building’s server room, that prompts immediate evacuation at the direction of local authorities, your organization likely already has a response plan in place. Your designated emergency team will begin their orderly, rehearsed evacuation, as per the documented evacuation procedures, and all office members will be evacuated safely as planned. But what happens if local authorities need to close the building indefinitely due to safety risks, or inspection that deems it unsuitable for business operations? Access to the building to retrieve supplies is limited, and a full reoccupation date is unknown. What happens now? Is there a plan in place that will keep operations going, a method to continue business in the new, post-risk circumstances?

It is situations like these that a business continuity strategy is critical. While emergency prevention and response plans are absolutely necessary for the safety and well-being of employees in the moment of risk itself, it is the business resilience plan that can ensure long-term safety following the disruption. A strong business continuity plan is the cornerstone of effective planning efforts and frames your ability as an organization to successfully respond, resume, and recover.

Framing this same example in terms of the actual reality of many businesses today, the abrupt order of displacement and remote work resulted in enormous disruption of operations for companies accustomed to in-office, interpersonal collaboration and work. While responding to the global pandemic in its immediacy hinged on the orders of local authorities and the World Health Organization advisories, the action plans for how to go about continuing business for those displaced companies was the responsibility of the company alone.

The key items to include in an effective business continuity plan include:

  • Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
  • Essential Functions (defined and prioritized)
  • Vital Records and Resources Plan
  • Risk Assessment (RA)
  • Risk Management Plan
  • Readiness Handbook
  • Alternate Site Procedures
  • Emergency Response Plan
  • Communications Plan
  • Delegation of Authority
  • Incident Command Structure
  • Succession Plans
  • Return to Normal Operations Plan

The Key to Business Resilience is Flexibility

While there are frameworks to follow, actionable items to cover, and quantifiable risk measurements to gauge the success of your business resilience strategy, any strong business resilience plan originates in a careful examination of what resilience actually means to your organization specifically. What is the mission and vision of your company? Who are your customers? Your potential shareholders? How much can you bend, before you actually break?

Certain components of daily operations will be inherently more flexible than others. There are many moving parts that drive day-to-day operations, so when there is significant upheaval, an immediate prioritization / triage exercise needs to take place in order to minimize the impact. Business resilience planning relies on the ability to identify those essential functions, and prioritizing which components are critical to be performed in times of distress.

Similarly, it is important to recognize which specific functions, resources, and personnel are not essential in keeping you in business when times are strife. Effective business resilience planning involves establishing an acceptable base-level plan of operations. Keeping the essential on board, while pausing those more flexible components, can help stretch resources and keep the organization running through those times of distress. A critical component of becoming a resilient organization is identifying your company’s vulnerabilities and preparing yourself to protect them in order to stay in business.

Business Resilience 2

Business Resilience is the Key to Long-Term Success

The world has seen several periods of disruptive global crisis events – natural disasters, political unrest, and now, a global pandemic – all of which have severely impacted global commerce. While these types of disruptions cannot be controlled, nor predicted, building resilience and recoverable operations can be controlled. When an adverse, harmful event strikes, it is not enough for your organization to get back on its feet once the storm is over. You need to be able to use this as an opportunity to stay ahead of others, stay on the forefront of the competitive market, even in face of unfamiliar challenges. Essentially, you need long-term resilience.

In a world where “long-term” means uncertainty, permanent flux, and unpredictability, in a global situation where looking into the future is as vague and unnerving as examining the day-to-day challenges, organizations need more than just agility in the way they manage and move on from risk to opportunity. Truly resilient companies look for growth in all situations, no matter how unfamiliar – and those with the right business resilience plan have the strategies necessary to capture them.

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Building a Resilient Business: Strategies for Scaling Business in 2024

I n the dynamic landscape of 2024, where the business environment is ever-evolving, resilience emerges as the cornerstone for sustainable growth. In this comprehensive guide, we delve into strategies that go beyond mere survival, offering a roadmap for businesses to thrive. From navigating regulatory changes and establishing a robust foundation to embracing technological advancements, building a strong digital presence, nurturing customer relationships, understanding market trends, and investing in sustainable practices, these strategies form a holistic approach to business scaling.

Adapting to Regulatory Changes

One of the primary challenges businesses face in their scaling journey is navigating the intricate web of regulatory changes. In an era where the legal landscape is in constant flux, staying ahead is not just beneficial but imperative. Here, the incorporation of a tax planning service in Dallas , Los Angeles or New York becomes a strategic move.

These services offer a localized perspective, providing businesses with insights into the specific tax regulations governing their operations. By aligning with experts who understand the nuances of regional tax reforms, businesses can optimize their financial strategies, minimize legal risks, and position themselves for sustained growth.

Establishing a Solid Foundation

Establishing a solid foundation is critical to laying the groundwork for a resilient business poised for sustainable growth. The organizational structure is the bedrock upon which scalability is built, and its careful construction is paramount. This involves not only streamlining operations but also optimizing workflows to enhance efficiency. A critical component in this process is investing in comprehensive employee training, recognizing that a well-trained and motivated workforce is not merely an asset—it is the driving force behind adaptability and long-term success.

By honing in on these foundational elements, businesses not only fortify their internal structure but also create a stable base capable of withstanding the challenges that come with expansion. A solid foundation acts as a strategic advantage, providing the necessary support for the intricate architecture of business growth. As businesses navigate the dynamic landscape of 2024, this emphasis on a robust organizational structure becomes not just a fundamental necessity but a proactive step towards resilience and scalability.

Embracing Technological Advancements

In the age of digital transformation , technology is a powerful catalyst for growth. Embracing the latest technological advancements is not just a choice; it's a strategic imperative. Automation of routine tasks, integration of AI-driven solutions, and leveraging data analytics can significantly enhance efficiency and productivity. Technologically empowered businesses not only streamline their processes but also exhibit a heightened ability to adapt to market changes. The seamless integration of technology into operations positions businesses on the cutting edge of innovation, a crucial factor in the pursuit of sustainable growth.

Building a Strong Digital Presence

A robust digital presence is a non-negotiable aspect of contemporary business strategy. In an era where consumers turn to the internet for almost everything, the importance of visibility cannot be overstated. To augment online visibility, businesses should consider strategic investments, such as a backlink package .

Backlinks, strategically placed across reputable online platforms, serve as the backbone of a strong digital presence. They not only enhance the authority of your website but also contribute to improved search engine rankings. This dual impact not only attracts more organic traffic but also establishes your business as a credible and authoritative player in the market.

Nurturing Customer Relationships

In the intricate tapestry of business success, customers form the vital thread. Nurturing strong and enduring relationships with customers transcends the transactional nature of business. It is about creating a loyal customer base that goes beyond mere sales. Personalized interactions, prompt customer service, and continuous engagement are the building blocks of trust. The satisfied customer evolves into a repeat customer, and more importantly, a vocal advocate for your brand. By actively listening to customer feedback and using it to refine products or services, businesses not only retain customers but also create a formidable brand presence.

Understanding Market Trends

A key component of resilience in the business landscape is the ability to anticipate and respond to market trends. The ability to anticipate and respond to market trends is a key differentiator, placing businesses in a strategic position to capitalize on emerging opportunities while adeptly navigating potential threats. Businesses that stay ahead of the curve through continuous and comprehensive analysis of industry developments, consumer behavior, and emerging technologies gain the foresight needed for proactive adaptation.

This market-savvy approach not only shields businesses from unforeseen challenges but also positions them as innovators within their industry. By staying abreast of evolving trends, businesses can not only meet current consumer demands but also predict and shape future preferences. This foresight provides a competitive edge, allowing businesses to pivot and align their strategies with market dynamics. In the ever-shifting terrain of business, understanding market trends emerges not just as a reactive measure but as a proactive strategy for sustained success and resilience.

Investing in Sustainable Practices

In the modern business environment, sustainability transcends buzzword status, transforming into a strategic imperative. As environmental consciousness takes center stage in consumer decision-making, businesses are compelled to align their operations with sustainable practices . This commitment goes beyond mere token gestures, necessitating a fundamental shift towards eco-friendly processes. By actively reducing carbon footprints, implementing green initiatives, and transparently communicating these efforts, businesses not only fulfill their ethical responsibilities but also unlock new avenues for growth.

Sustainability is no longer confined to a moral stance; it has evolved into a tangible business strategy that resonates with an increasingly conscientious consumer base. Embracing sustainable practices not only positions businesses as responsible corporate citizens but also establishes a competitive advantage in a market where eco-conscious choices are gaining prominence. This strategic alignment with sustainability not only contributes to a positive environmental impact but also strengthens a business's connection with its socially aware customers.

Final Thoughts

As you embark on the journey to build a resilient and scalable business in 2024, consider these strategies as your roadmap to success. From navigating regulatory landscapes to embracing cutting-edge technologies, each step outlined in this guide is a crucial building block for sustained growth. Take charge of your business's future by implementing these strategies and position yourself not just to survive but to thrive in the dynamic business environment.

Now, it's your turn to put these insights into action. Evaluate your current business practices, identify areas for improvement, and proactively embrace change. Whether it's partnering with a tax planning service, optimizing your digital presence with a strategic backlinks package, or investing in sustainable practices, every decision shapes the trajectory of your business. Remember, resilience is not just about weathering storms—it's about emerging stronger on the other side. Seize the opportunity to fortify your business foundation, stay ahead of market trends, and become a leader in sustainable business practices. The future of your business awaits—take the first step towards building a resilient and scalable enterprise today.

In the dynamic landscape of 2024, where the business environment is ever-evolving, resilience emerges as the cornerston

Canal delays and the impact on global supply chains

Knut Alicke

February 6, 2024 “Can’t our supply chain just have a normal year?”

The wish is understandable. While 2023 seemed to mark a degree of post-COVID-19 normality, 2024 has started with a sharp reminder about the importance of supply chain resilience. Reduced cost and inventory levels alone don’t make the Panama Canal any fuller or the Red Sea any more navigable.

Long-term questions haven’t gone away either. A recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) looks at shifting global trade flows , considering potential reconfigurations based on developing economies and geopolitical distance. It flags that businesses will need to plan for disruptions, and two ongoing examples in shipping show just how great the need is.

Our colleagues in McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics, and Infrastructure practice have commented on the cost and delay implications of low water levels in the Panama Canal , which normally carries around 8 percent of global container volume. 1 Extreme drought has reduced maximum ship crossings, resulting in prolonged waiting times. Consequently, several carriers have already announced new fees for Panama transits. 2 In addition to costs incurred by shipping companies and their clients, costs for the Panama Canal itself are estimated to rise to between $500 million and $700 million in 2024, 3 compared with previous estimates of $200 million.

At the same time, conflict in the Red Sea and reduced access to the Suez Canal are leading companies to reroute shipping around the Cape of Good Hope, adding about two weeks to shipping time while raising costs for resources such as fuel for the vessel and food for the crew. While this delay is relatively short if a supply chain is prepared accordingly, there have been reports of automotive companies implementing line stoppages in response to material shortages. The direct impact on business revenue illustrates the need to invest in resilient supply chains. 4

These disruptions are different from the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, the demand for goods significantly increased, whereas now a supply shortage has the potential to lead to stockouts. Still, both cases call for measures to increase supply chain resilience. In the current situation, the main impact is on cargo traveling from Asia to Europe, but because of delays causing an imbalance of container availability, the impact is also being felt in routes from Asia to the west coast of North America. As with most challenges, the situation will normalize; we expect it to take around two months for global supply chains to absorb the two weeks (the time added by shipping detours) of inventory.

Waiting for that normalization to happen is not an attractive option. Instead, company leaders can take actions to build further resilience and ready themselves for additional disruptions, should they occur. Most likely, they will; previous research has predicted disruptions of one month or more every 3.7 years .

The expectation of more frequent disruptions suggests a need to prepare for the future. Supply chain leaders can prepare by developing an understanding of their operations and the world in which they are operating. They should establish an insights edge for competitive advantage, with a granular view of their company, peers and other elements of the value chain, and the broader global context.

Second, it is important that supply chain leaders understand their tier-n connections in detail. Indeed, MGI research shows that only 2 percent of companies have visibility below tier two . And finally, it is becoming increasingly important for leaders to monitor the world for tremors that may signal challenges to their operations; looking solely at their own value chains will no longer be sufficient.

With this in-depth understanding of their supply chains in place, companies can pursue a set of strategic actions to mitigate future risks. Establishing options to shift supply chains, production locations, or operating markets can provide alternatives when disruption hits, as can explorations of new technologies , partnerships, and alternative materials.

A final thought: there is no room for complacency in supply chain management and the pursuit of resilience, and the case for supply chain leaders having the ear of— and indeed being part of —the executive board remains as strong as ever.

1 “A freightful time for container ships,” Financial Times , January 4, 2024. 2 “Panama Canal to be a maritime pinch point well into 2024,” Riviera News , December 4, 2023. 3 “Panama Canal toll revenue shrinking this fiscal year due to drought,” Reuters, January 17, 2024 4 Victoria Waldersee, Anna Ringstrom, and Marie Mannes, “Tesla, Volvo Car pause output as Red Sea shipping crisis deepens,” January 12, 2024.

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/ update, these four chokepoints are threatening global trade.

Right now, more than 50% of global maritime trade is at threat of disruption in four key areas of the world.

While the conflict in the Red Sea has been high in the news agenda, there are three other maritime passageways that risk becoming chokepoints due to either geopolitical or environmental factors.

what is business resilience plan

1. The Suez Canal and Bab El-Mandeb Strait.

The Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, normally accounts for about 12% of global maritime trade.

  • Since the start of Houthi attacks on international shipping in late 2023, some 470 container vessels have already been re-routed. Sending ships around the Cape of Good Hope adds between 9 and 17 days of transit time.

2. The Strait of Hormuz.

This strait, between Iran to the north and UAE and Oman to the south, is significant for both energy and goods shipping.

  • Some 20%—30% of oil trade passes through this strait, and a significant amount of global shipping volumes.

If Iran were to be drawn more directly into the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the free passage of vessels through the strait could be at risk.

3. The Straits of Malaca and Taiwan.

The Strait of Malaca, between Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, is the shortest shipping route between East Asia and the Middle East and Europe and accounts for 30% of global trade.

  • Two-thirds of China’s trade passes through the strait of Malacca each year, including 80% of its energy imports.

There is an ongoing dispute between China and several members of the ASEAN trade area over a large area in the South China sea.

  • Also in the region, the strait of Taiwan is another important shipping lane—40% of the world’s container fleet pass through it.

Both trade routes are subject to heightened geopolitical uncertainty.

4. The Panama Canal.

The canal, which links the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, accounts for 5% of total global container trade, and some 46% of the trade from the US East Coast to East Asia.

It is facing a severe drought due to the El Niño weather phenomenon.

The authority that manages the canal has responded to low water levels by temporarily reducing both the number of transits and ensuring the weight of the cargo is suitable.

The So What

“These geopolitical risks could turn into a physical impossibility of moving goods to certain destinations. In the short term it will extend lead times on goods. In the longer term, it is likely to make firms seek shorter supply chains because of the risk and higher capital costs associated with maritime transport,” says Michael McAdoo , a BCG partner and director, and one of the authors of BCG’s Future of Trade report.

“The financial impact is likely to impact producers most as they adapt their routes to market. But, as with almost any disruption, there are also opportunities, especially for freight companies to bring new solutions,” says Peter Jameson , a BCG managing director and partner who specializes in shipping.

  • Diversify shipping routes , and transport choices. Shippers should proactively work with their logistics providers to build new solutions. Options to consider include alternative shipping routes through the Arctic, combining ship and air (for example by shipping to Dubai and then flying to Europe), or using rail for parts of the journey to avoid choke points.
  • Escort vessels. The use of military or private escorts could be considered to protect ships carrying cargo. Some governments will have a strong national interest in protecting both trade and/or their national shipping companies.
  • Prioritize advanced communications. Leveraging advanced technologies, especially artificial intelligence, is key for proactive risk management, allowing for the anticipation of disruptions and rapid response. Ships should become even more connected to each other, sharing locations and observations. Customers will also benefit from real-time updates on the progress of cargo.
  • Build inventories and storage. Companies need to plan for resilience, and may need to update or expand infrastructure, including port capacity or storage facilities. Reassessing the design and capacity of warehouses, for example, could help create a hedge around potential disruptions. As happened at the height of the COVID pandemic, companies and governments will need to assess their strategic priorities.
  • Step up contingency planning. Companies should examine how different bottlenecks may emerge or could be alleviated, and pinpoint specific areas where they are structurally exposed. Digital twins and modelling can help here. They can also look for existing points of redundancy in existing supply chains to free up capacity. Strengthening financial strategies, including comprehensive insurance and prudent financial planning is also vital to safeguard against the economic setbacks of unexpected logistical challenges. Pricing strategies may also need to be reconsidered in order to protect margins.

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