The world has not even fully recovered from the pandemic, yet here comes an unusually high degree of interrelated emerging risks. Though external challenges, these persistent events may prevent organisations from successfully navigating the new normal. To drive efficiencies and ensure continuity, businesses must move to build not only agility but also operational resilience.
According to the 3Q22 Gartner Emerging Risks Survey, a macroeconomic downturn is the top emerging risk facing organisations in Australia. This is followed by key material shortages, critical infrastructure failure, ESG implementation challenges and evolving socio-political expectations.
Despite all top five emerging risks being external factors, their interconnectedness can create a domino effect across industries. Hence, these risks can have a detrimental impact not only on the economy, but also on society.
For example, evolving socio-political expectations have led to the evolution of compliance laws and legislation. Meanwhile, increasing demand for sustainability resulted in the implementation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs for regulatory compliance. Moreover, businesses are now focusing on sustainable investing—which includes augmenting data privacy protection—to achieve their ESG programs.
The interconnectedness of these risk factors is amplifying the uncertainties of the new normal. While their impact on markets and industries are still indefinite, one thing is clear—businesses will experience further disruptions. However, implementing an effective operational resilience program can help organisations not only mitigate risks, but also boost business continuity.
What is Operational Resilience
With the pandemic still looming, the world has become even more unpredictable and challenging. In fact, some businesses are still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic, while others no longer exist or have been acquired. As we continue the fight to achieve stability, we must look at how we can build operational resilience to ensure business continuity.
Operational resilience is an organisation’s ability to manage, control and adapt rapidly to changes or disruptions in its environment. It encompasses people, facilities, technology and third parties that help you continue operations, even in an impaired state.
Operational resilience includes the processes, systems, characteristics, and techniques that businesses utilise to recover from adverse events. Whether it is a natural disaster or complex compliance requirements, operational resilience enables your business to overcome unexpected challenges and thrive. To help your business prepare for and prevent disruptions, here are 5 steps to build operational resilience: