Disaster Recovery Journal Summer 2023

3 Ways to Future-Proof Your Organization with Operational Resilience By KATE NEEDHAM-BENNETT & STEVE RICHARDSON O perating in a state of “business as usual” is no longer synonymous with an absence of disruption or crises occurring. The challenges institutions face have become pre dictably unpredictable. From geopolitical events to natural disasters to mismanage ment of risks, there are global business disruptions which are being dealt with daily. The “new normal” is a state of near constant management and mitigation of disruption to services. The chance of compounding crises occurring is a major concern for risk, resilience, security, and operations teams. There is mounting pressure (from regu

lators as well as consumers) for organi zations to take a proactive approach to ensure their future resilience, assuming regular controls might fail and scenarios will be more severe than anticipated. With that being said, there are three key consid erations to remember when implementing a more resilient state. Break Down Silos At the simplest level, a firm’s leader ship needs to know where their organiza tion might have vulnerabilities, what must be done to prevent impacts being felt, and how to implement resilience measures in order to be better prepared for future disruptions. In some organizations, their operational risk, cybersecurity, IT disas ter recovery, supply chain, compliance, and business continuity programs oper ate in isolation from one another. They work off of different data sets and have differing priorities which leads to differ-

16 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | SUMMER 2023