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In September 1944, my grandfather, who was only 18 years old at the time, was drafted and sent to England on his way to France as part of the U.S. effort in World War II. Not long after landing in France, he faced combat for the first time with the U.S. Army’s 44th Infantry Division, in which he was involved in an intense battle with German forces. The fighting went on for months as American troops pushed through enemy lines. For a while, everything seemed to be going as expected. At least, until January 16, 1945.
That’s when my grandfather was captured by German soldiers in the Vosges Mountains of France and taken to a prison camp. This occurred during what is now known as the Battle of the Bulge.
For three months, my grandfather endured cramped and harsh conditions while under German control in Bad Orb, Germany, at the prison camp known as Stalag IX-B. His stories were horrific, focused on severe weight loss, non-existent hygiene, exposure to diseases, and the small portions of food received.
One story always sticks close to my heart. While in the prison camp, my grandfather was able to find enough material and tools to make an oversized spoon that he could use to drink the, as he called it, “boiled grass soup” whenever it was provided. That spoon now sits in a shadowbox on a shelf in my office. Whenever I feel frustrated, overwhelmed, or discouraged, personally or professionally, I look up at that spoon and am reminded of what it means to be resilient.
That spoon wasn’t just a tool. It was a symbol of adaptation in the face of crisis. It represented ingenuity, grit, and survival in a situation that was unplanned, uncertain, and deeply challenging. The making of that spoon required significant adjustments, endurance, and a complete mindset shift. It wasn’t just about protecting a country’s sovereignty; it was about survival.
In a similar vein, today’s organizations must build their own “spoon” when disruption strikes, crafting resourceful, resilient responses that go beyond checklists and protocols.
Organizations are increasingly judged not by whether they experience an incident, but by how quickly and effectively they respond and recover.
From the lens of a Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) professional, there are three critical areas shaping the current field of operational resilience and incident management.
Traditional TPRM programs were built around periodic assessments: annual reviews, point-in-time due diligence, and standard questionnaires.
But resilience demands more. It requires a continuous pulse on vendor health, operational capacity, and real-time risks. An outage at a key cloud provider, a cyberattack at a payments processor, or a compliance failure by a supplier can ripple across an organization in minutes.
Evangelizing operational resilience means pushing organizations to move beyond static assessments and embrace ongoing monitoring and predictive insights. It’s about knowing not just who your critical third parties are, but how prepared they are to withstand disruption and how quickly you can pivot when they don’t.
When a third-party incident occurs, it’s rarely contained to one department. Legal, compliance, procurement, IT, operations, and the C-suite must align around response and recovery.
In the TPRM space, we still see too many silos and delayed escalations that turn small disruptions into enterprise-wide crises.
Effective incident management is about building a playbook that spans the enterprise and your third-party ecosystem. This includes clear escalation paths, predefined communication channels, and shared accountability.
Resilience is built in the moments before the crisis. That’s when governance structures, roles, and expectations must be set, tested, and continuously refined.
Regulators worldwide are sharpening their focus on operational resilience. Frameworks like DORA in Europe, the OCC and Federal Reserve guidance in the U.S., and sector-specific mandates in financial services, healthcare, and energy are making it clear: resilience is not optional.
The challenge is that compliance is fragmented. Different regions and sectors impose different standards.
Here’s where TPRM technology shines. Modern platforms give organizations a single lens across global regulatory requirements, ensuring that resilience and incident management are not just reactive, but built into the DNA of third-party oversight.
Evangelizing this approach means helping organizations see regulation not as a burden, but as a roadmap for stronger, smarter operations.
At Aravo, we believe the path forward lies in transforming how organizations approach resilience and incident management.
That’s why our Customer Defined Assessment (CDA) capabilities give organizations the flexibility to tailor risk assessments to their unique business model, regulatory environment, and critical third-party ecosystem.
Instead of static, one-size-fits-all questionnaires, CDAs enable dynamic, targeted insights that evolve with the threat landscape.
But resilience doesn’t stop at assessments.
With Aravo’s Intelligence-First approach, organizations gain real-time visibility into emerging risks, patterns, and vulnerabilities across their vendor portfolio. This means faster detection, smarter escalation, and more informed decision-making when incidents strike.
By combining CDA flexibility with intelligence-driven oversight, Aravo equips enterprises not just to comply with today’s regulatory mandates, but to build the operational resilience that tomorrow’s challenges demand.
Just like my grandfather, organizations today must respond to unexpected disruptions with ingenuity, adaptability, and purpose.
Operational resilience is not just about surviving the crisis. It’s about emerging stronger. Whether you’re facing cyber threats, vendor failures, or new regulatory demands, the question is the same:
Do you have your “spoon” ready?
With the right tools, mindset, and partnerships, like those offered by Aravo, resilience isn’t left to chance. It becomes intentional.
Looking beyond checklists to real survival and success? Speak to Aravo’s experts about embedding Intelligence First™ resilience in your operations.
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