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Why is operational resilience so important now? 

 
In short – because of the evolving and volatile nature of the global business environment.

Businesses today face a myriad of unpredictable challenges, ranging from pandemics to natural disasters, cyber threats, and geopolitical uncertainties.
 
Operational resilience is the key to ensuring an organization can effectively respond to and recover from such disruptions.
 

Common causes of operational disruption

• Market volatility: Economic volatility and market uncertainties are fast becoming the new normal. Operational resilience supports companies in navigating market fluctuations and achieving the closest thing to stability in the face of economic downturns or sudden market shifts.

• Supply chain risks: Globalization means supply chains are more interconnected than ever, making businesses extra vulnerable. Operational resilience is essential to identify and mitigate risks in the supply chain, ensuring continued operations despite potential disruptions.

• Cybersecurity threats: With the increasing frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks, operational resilience is vital for protecting critical systems, data, and infrastructure. This means not only preventing attacks, but also recovering swiftly in the case of a security breach.

• Digital transformation: As businesses undergo digital transformations, reliance on technology increases, along with the potential for things to go south. Operational resilience ensures that digital systems are robust and can withstand technological failures or cyber incidents, safeguarding critical business functions.

15 game-changing benefits of operational resilience

 
Operational resilience focuses on anticipating, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disruptions, fostering the long-term sustainability and success of a company. If that’s not enough to motivate you, here are 15 other very good reasons to pursue operational resilience within your organization.
 
 
1. Regulatory compliance: Regulators worldwide are emphasizing operational resilience as a critical aspect of risk management, particularly for Financial Services firms. Embedding operational resilience aligns your organization with regulatory expectations, ensuring compliance with standards such as the FCA’s P21/3 Building Operational Resilience and APRA’s CPS 230 Operational Risk Management, and reducing the risk of penalties and legal issues.
 
2. Business continuity: Operational resilience can help ensure uninterrupted business operations, minimizing downtime and maintaining your essential functions, even in the face of unforeseen events. Classic Business Continuity Planning (BCP) has historically focused on short-term recovery; operational resilience takes that to the next level with a holistic, proactive and long-term approach to contingency planning.
 
3. Risk mitigation: By identifying and assessing potential risks across your organization, operational resilience allows you to proactively implement measures to mitigate and manage risks effectively. Integrating operational resilience with a GRC solution like Ansarada GRC is the most secure and effective means of getting full visibility across your risk management program.
 
4. Adaptability to change: Resilient organizations can adapt much more easily to changes in the business environment – whether those are related to market shifts, technological advancements, or regulatory updates – ensuring sustained relevance and competitiveness.
 
5. Customer trust: Consistent and reliable service delivery, especially during challenging times, fosters customer trust and loyalty. By demonstrating your commitment to your customers, operational resilience can enhance your organization's reputation for reliability.
 
6. Supply chain optimization: Operational resilience enables your organization to identify and address vulnerabilities in their supply chain, fostering a more robust and efficient network of suppliers and partners. This is becoming more and more important in the wake of new sustainability legislation, like Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, which requires companies to comply with environmental and human rights standards across their entire supply chains.
 
7. Cost efficiency: Through proactive risk management and effective response mechanisms, operational resilience helps reduce the financial impact of disruptions, minimizing potential losses and associated costs by ensuring your organization stays within ‘tolerable harm’ limits.
 
8. Employee productivity: As a resilient organization, you’ll provide employees with the tools, training, and support necessary to navigate challenges, fostering a positive work environment and keeping employee productivity levels high.
 
9. Strategic decision-making: Operational resilience provides your organization’s leaders with complete oversight through a comprehensive understanding of potential risks, enabling informed and strategic decision-making in line with your organization's long-term objectives.
 
10. Innovation and growth: Resilient organizations are better positioned to embrace innovation and pursue growth opportunities. With the ability to adapt to change quickly and effectively, you’ll have more confidence to explore new markets, technologies, and business models.
 
11. Stakeholder confidence: Your investors, partners, and other stakeholders value robust operational resilience. Demonstrating your ability to weather uncertainties can build confidence in your stakeholders and enhance your organization's overall standing.
 
12. Faster recovery: In the event of a disruption, your organization will be enabled to facilitate a swift recovery and reduce the time it takes to return to normal operations - thus minimizing the impact on your organization's performance.
 
13. Crisis preparedness: Operational resilience involves comprehensive crisis preparedness, ensuring that your organization has well-defined crisis management plans, communication strategies, and protocols for handling unexpected events.
 
14. Competitive advantage: Embedding operational resilience gives your organization a competitive advantage by differentiating it in the market. Being recognized as a reliable and resilient partner can attract customers and business opportunities.
 
15. Sustainability edge: Viewing operational resilience holistically not only benefits your business, but also gets you ahead of the curve on what is becoming increasingly mandated ESG regulation.
With its value chain analysis and climate resilience scenarios, operational resilience lays the groundwork for compliance with emerging ESG legislation like ISSB S1, S2, and CSRD requirements. Ensure your operational resilience aligns seamlessly with evolving regulations while shaping a sustainable and resilient future for your organization.

Ansarada GRC for Operational Resilience

In today's business environment, even the best-laid plans can fail. Having a disaster recovery plan, ISO accreditation, and annual audits is now considered the absolute minimum baseline. Ansarada GRC provides a complete Governance, Risk and Compliance solution, integrating all facets of operational resilience. Our platform covers risk management, control assessment, event tracking, contract management, policy compliance, regulatory scanning and more.

Book a demo of Ansarada GRC. See Operational Resilience in action.

This blog was originally posted on Ansarada.com.