The world we live in now is characterized by rapid, unpredictable changes. Because of this – today’s business environment is as fragile as ever. Understandably, your business may benefit from some changes as they bring opportunities for your business. Other changes may be detrimental to your business as they pose challenges and sometimes even threats.
At any rate, it is your responsibility to make your business responsive and resilient— continuously taking advantage of opportunities while mitigating risks. The ability to safeguard your business against all types of threats – such as cyber-attacks, supply chain disruptions, or natural disasters, is, among others, the essence of business resiliency.
When faced with a major disruptive incident, resilient businesses often come out unscathed as they seamlessly adapt and adjust to new environments. Read on to learn about the ins and outs of how you can make your business more resilient and robust.
Set Your Priorities Straight
Before your business resilience planning, there are steps that you can take that act as a safety net for your tangible assets in case you weren’t fully prepared for a threat. Depending on the kind of business you’re running, you should consider getting insured accordingly. Buying proper insurance will help alleviate some of the concerns you have regarding risks and potential threats.
Understandably, getting insured in this day and age won’t do all the job for you in terms of securing your business against future threats. Experts at Continuity2.com believe that—whether you need ISO certification or want to implement a comprehensive business resilience program—you need to have proper business continuity measures in place to gain an edge over your competitors in case things go south.
Examples of Threats That Cause Disruption
Studies suggest that out of all potential disruptive events, natural disasters don’t even make the top 7 most concerning threats to business operations. As such, it is prudent to familiarize yourself with other threats, including:
- Data breaches
- Cyber-attacks
- Vandalism, protest, theft, fraud, and security incidents
- Utility-supply interruption
- Supply-chain disruptions
- Adverse weather
- Health and safety incidents
- Fire
Business Resilience Framework
Every organization has a different structure. Therefore, a standardized framework shouldn’t be taken at face value as you need to do your own homework in thoroughly familiarizing yourself with your company’s infrastructure. In any case, the following tips are crucial in giving you an overview of the steps you can take to gain clarity.
Your Assets – Your Responsibility
Like it or not, your customers expect seamless services from you in terms of shopping, billing, ordering, satisfaction, and customer service—regardless of your company’s current situation. Therefore, it is your responsibility to know your assets through and through prior to planning any responsive strategy.
Start by prioritizing your assets. Oftentimes, the bigger the enterprise, the more interconnected the systems within the organization. Therefore, learn what’s connected to what and which functions are to be prioritized. This way, you will know which systems or assets need to be isolated in the event of a disruptive change.
Strengthen Your Supply Chain Relationship
Now that we’re experiencing a pandemic, it is all the more necessary to maintain a healthy relationship with your third parties. Supply chains are often highly interdependent. You ought to keep an eye out for the changes that affect your third parties and, if need be, consider lending a helping hand. Remember, your company will grow by forging alliances.
Improve Online Security
Failure to secure your network will result in security breaches and cyber-attacks, which can be detrimental to your company’s stability. To be able to contain and isolate malware, divide your network into different segments.
Conduct Disaster Drills Periodically
Practice makes perfect. One of the best things you can do to make sure that your staff members are on the same page as you regarding business resilience is to conduct frequent drills. It is imperative that you make it as realistic and stressful as possible, as this should be a simulation of the real disruptive event. Make sure your employees are educated on all security-related matters.
Is It Worth It?
With an object-oriented framework like the one discussed here, you’re in essence one step ahead of your competitors. You can even go as far as to say that in the event of a natural disaster, you’ll not only come out of it unscathed, but you might benefit from it. How? The faster you recover, the more customers you attract as some of your competitors might not have been ready for the shock, hence losing their customers.
It may be the case that the threats have a low probability of happening; however, the whole idea is that you’re planning ahead of time and that you’re diligent. Only in doing so could you be able to identify the threats and their impact on your business. Therefore, without giving it a second thought—start your business resilience planning.
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