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The last year and a half have taught us that the world can experience a tremendous change in a short time. Whether it’s rapid technological advancements, political transitions, cyberattacks, stalling economies or even a global pandemic, only resilient organisations can weather these storms.

That’s why the concept of organisational resilience is now more relevant than ever before. Organisational resilience is all about how well a company anticipates, plans for and responds to gradual change and unexpected disruptions in its business environment so that it can continue to operate and thrive.

Related Read: How Can Cyber Resilience Protects SMEs in Ireland?

Organisations and individuals that discovered meaningful ways to practise resilience in the face of change, from remote and hybrid working to digital acceleration, proved to have an enormous strategic advantage. Cultivate a resilient culture so that you aren’t caught off guard when disruptions occur.

Remember, if your people, processes and technologies aren’t resilient, your business will have a tough time recovering from setbacks such as downtime-induced financial loss as well as dissatisfied employees.

What Does a Resilient Organisation Look Like?

Organisations that recover quickly from setbacks typically do the following:

Create an environment for innovation

An organisation’s employees are among its most valuable assets. You can encourage innovation among your employees by creating a work culture that supports creative thinking and effective communication. This will empower them to contribute their knowledge, abilities and suggestions.

An innovative work culture ensures that everyone in the company works towards improving business practices, productivity and overall resilience. An innovative organisation can quickly come up with multiple strategies to deal with a crisis.

Adapt to meet changing customer needs

Consumer demands and behaviour are influenced by global events. With that in mind, if a customer-focused company wants to survive and prepare for the future, it must understand and adapt to changes.

Asking these three questions will provide organisations with perspective:

• What are our customers’ behaviours?
• Why do our customers behave that way?
• What do we need to alter to cater to a new set of demands and behaviours?

Overcome reputational and organisational setbacks

Almost every firm will face reputational or organisational setbacks at some point during its life span. Some businesses may crumble as a result of their inability to prepare for and recover from change and challenges. However, the resilient ones will do everything in their power to identify the source of the setback, rectify the damage caused and make communication with stakeholders transparent.

Read: How Backup and Disaster Recovery Protects SMEs

Rise to the challenge

While it’s impossible to control what challenges your business encounters, you can certainly control how you deal with them. A resilient organisation will be better equipped to stand firm in the face of severe adversity and will have the means to recover as quickly as possible.

Tactics of Resilient Organisations

Prioritise the following tactics to nurture a resilient organisation:

Proactive cybersecurity planning

Being proactive regarding cybersecurity means your business won’t just be waiting for a potential attack, but rather have tools and procedures in place to avoid these threats even when you become a target. Implementing standards and guidelines such as ISO27001, or the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Cyber Security Framework, is often an excellent choice, depending on your industry and location.

More on these guidelines: Our Detailed Guide on NIST and an article comparing both: NIST or ISO27001 – why choose one?

Protection of intellectual property (IP)

This is more of a legal and operational task and includes having the right employee, contractor and partnership agreements in place to avoid critical organisational IP from being disclosed.

Implementation of uptime safeguards

This requires being able to restore service via automatic failover or backup and recovery. Learn how much downtime costs your business.

Contingency plan mapping

Build a business continuity and disaster recovery plan that lays out contingency plans for events like downtime, evacuations, and so on to be prepared for tricky situations.

Read: What is Business Continuity, and why does it matter?

First Step to Organisational Resilience: Understand your Path

Organisational resilience doesn’t happen by accident; it requires a structured and well-thought plan made for your business. To build this plan, you need to understand which areas are lacking and thriving so that priorities may be addressed and remaining gaps can be closed.

Trying to build a resilient organisation on your own is a massive challenge and will consume a great deal of time and resources. Partnering with an expert like us takes the worry and heavy load off your shoulders. Contact us today to schedule a consultation, and we’ll guide you through every step of the process.