Is your business resilient? A few years ago, most businesses would have answered yes to this. However, the turbulence caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and other unforeseen challenges, has highlighted just how fragile supply chains and businesses can be and has left organisations questioning their resilience, or lack of.
In this blog post we will cover:
Resilience is the ability of a business to react to unforeseen circumstances that occur with minimal disruption to day-to-day operations.
The business environment is constantly changing and throwing up different challenges which are becoming even more unpredictable and challenging. For example, in the past few years alone there has been a global pandemic, Brexit, labour shortages, a fuel crisis adding extra strain to supply chains and currently a European war. Having a plan in place for different scenarios is essential so that you can overcome them efficiently with as little disruption as possible, and building resilience offers you a competitive advantage too.
We have already mentioned a few of the challenges that have been thrown at businesses over the last few years. However, when we talk about preparing for unexpected challenges the spectrum is quite vast. Internal challenges may include a key employee leaving suddenly, a major client not renewing, employee theft, cyber-attacks, not having enough skills within the workforce, management issues or vandalism. Environmentally there are also lots of pressures which businesses should prepare for such as economic downturns, natural disasters, government legislation changes or terrorism. Did you know that 40% of businesses don’t reopen after major disruption, and among those that do, 25% will fail within a year?
When it comes to measuring performance that’s straight forward – turnover, sales figures and customer feedback can often tell you if your business is performing well. But how can you measure your resilience? Put simply, resilience cannot truly be measured until a crisis occurs and you witness how quickly and smoothly your business bounces back from it.
We have compiled our 7 top tips to help you build resilience within your organisation.
You never know what is round the corner and the question is not if another crisis will occur but when. Knowing how you will respond to potential problems, such as those outlined above, is a crucial step in building a resilient business. For example:
Only those who expect change and are brave enough to diversify will survive and thrive. Whilst it’s important to make smart decisions (and we’ve written plenty of blog posts on this), sometimes it’s vital to make fast decisions to move your business forward and demonstrate strong leadership. Try not to become tied up in “paralysis by analysis” waiting for the perfect decision because often in a crisis decisions need to be made timely and efficiently because the future depends on it.
It is always a risk to put all your eggs in one basket and a resilient business will be sure to avoid doing this. To build resilience you might want to explore additional revenue streams to provide a buffer for your business. For example:
Your people are the backbone to your business and critical to your resilience. Trust and empower them and equip them with the tools they need to drive the business forward, whilst clearly communicating your position, plans and challenges. You may need to look at your company culture and consider whether you have a strong culture – companies with a strong culture have employees who know their purpose and are motivated.
Robust software can protect your business in the same way that the lack of robust software can expose you to all kinds of threats and weaknesses. Having reliable technology in place is essential to helping your business overcome challenges quickly and efficiently. For example, an ERP solution would give you real-time visibility and collaboration across all areas of your organisation and would highlight trends so you can identify and act upon them early. For example, you would quickly see any bottlenecks occurring within your supply chain so you could act upon them before too much disruption is caused.
It is becoming harder to predict your customer behaviour, especially when economic times are tough, but understanding your customers is crucial to a continuous cashflow so you should be using all your tools to analyse and predict what your customers are doing and what they may do next. For example:
Are your processes still fit for purpose and working for your business? You should make time to regularly review your processes to ensure they are still efficient, because what has worked before may no longer be working now. Good processes will be smooth and efficient rather than time consuming, non-productive, and difficult. In the event of a crisis, you will need robust processes in place which work for your business.
To succeed in turbulent business environments, as has been witnessed in recent years, you need to be resilient and have strategies in place to survive unforeseen challenges and risks. Building resilience has become a matter of failure or survival and ensuring your business puts steps in place to become resilient is essential. Preparing for challenges and putting a plan in place for different scenarios is a good place to start, but don’t be afraid to change or adapt if you need to.
For more information about building a resiliency, or to learn how our award-winning ERP solution, Opera 3, can help, please get in touch with us today.
Posted On: August 17, 2022
