January 25th, 2022 •
Hannah Tichansky • Reading Time: 4minutes
The time is here and we’re ready to unveil the theme for Risk & Resilience Magazine’s second issue! For this issue, debuting end of March, we chose to explore the path to organizational resilience and best practices for companies starting this journey.
Why We Chose this Theme
Regulators, boards, and business stakeholders are paying more and more attention to the environment corporations live in today: one of increased business interruption and the need to manage these risks while still maintaining operations. Unlike other areas of risk management that focus on avoiding disruption, organizational resilience is a company’s ability to withstand disruptions while still providing services to customers.
In a LinkedIn Live Panel, Aravo’s Kimberley Allan and industry leader and CEO of Radical Compliance, Matt Kelly discussed the importance of this topic, emphasizing that organizational resilience is relatively new, but companies need to get on board with it sooner, rather than later.
“There are more and more ways for businesses to be hit by disruptions. The better you are at this, the more you’re able to survive in the market. Covid, weather disruptions, sudden disruptions in supply chains like the Suez Canal cargo ship, etc.”
Matt Kelly, LinkedIn Live
Another key element to this theme that we’ll be exploring in Risk & Resilience Magazine is how third-party and supplier risk fits into organizational resilience. Resilience is not just about improving internal processes, but also the processes of your third parties.
“Risks will catch up with you whether you are equipped to manage it or not. People in resilience-adjacent functions are logical people to start the ball rolling… Whoever leads this will have conversations on what needs to be prioritized during an emergency, because it can’t be everything. Make sure to have these conversations in a productive way.”
Matt Kelly, LinkedIn Live
Our Risk & Resilience March cover. All rights reserved.
So, What Really is Organizational Resilience?
Organizational resilience is an organization’s ability to anticipate, prepare for, address and recover swiftly and efficiently from a disruptive event. Organizational resilience requires holistic thinking, de-siloed functions, and continuous improvements to respond to emerging threats and disruptions.
From cyberattacks and regulatory updates to consumer demands, changes in the market, and natural disasters, it can be difficult to imagine being prepared for every possible risk variable. Compounding this are operations that flow well under business-as-usual routines, but tend to break down when there are large events and unprecedented strain.
In order to meet the evolving, complicated risks we’re seeing post-pandemic, there is a need to move quickly with systemic processes for uncertainty, while also leaving room for improvisation and quick decision making. To help meet these needs, businesses need to start developing practices to support organizational resilience, holistic management of practices, and processes to tackle risks on the horizon in a way that takes into account uncertainty.
What’s Part of the Path to Organizational Resilience?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to organizational resilience, just as there is not a set rulebook that companies can use to get the ball rolling. Rather, organizational resilience is comprised of a variety of programs, processes, and initiatives that help to manage risks and maintain operations during a crisis.
Keep in mind that organizational resilience is not an end-point that can be achieved after following a set path; rather, it is an area for continuous improvement, involving the types of risk management programs that best fit the needs of your organization. Several of these programs that will be explored in the upcoming issue include:
Business Continuity Management:
A framework for identifying and addressing organizational risks and maintaining normal business operations during disruptive events.
Crisis Response and Management:
The processes an organization has to address a major situation or disruption that has the potential to cause harm to the business, the stakeholders, the public, or other entities.
Disaster Recovery:
An organization’s processes that respond to and recover from a situation that has negatively affected operations.
Supply Chain Risk Management:
Strategic steps a business takes to identify, address, and mitigate risks within its supply chain.
TPRM:
A component of a company’s risk management, focusing on identifying and mitigating risks associated with third parties and suppliers.
Cybersecurity:
Processes and tools to protect critical systems and information from digital attacks. Within resilience, this includes cybersecurity of vendors and along the supply chain.
IT Resilience:
IT security of systems and infrastructure that supports operations in order to maintain service levels during disruptions.
Training and Development:
Organizational resilience training helps build new routines and improvisation techniques so that employees and leaders are prepared to act comfortably and efficiently during uncertain situations. Incident Response Training, Business Resilience Training, and Business Continuity Training are all exercises that help companies prepare and respond to a crisis.
Operational Resilience:
These initiatives expand on business continuity to examine impact and tolerance levels during disruptions that could affect the organization, customers, and other stakeholders.
What to Expect in the Upcoming Issue
Interested in learning more? We are excited to share the new issue of Risk & Resilience Magazine with the world at the end of March! The upcoming issue will include insights from industry leaders, practitioners, and experts on topics like resilience, business continuity, crisis management, and more. Featuring interviews, articles, and infographics, Risk & Resilience’s Spring issue will provide best practices for organizations to begin building their own resilience.
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