Operational Resilience: Considerations For Boards, The C-Suite and Enterprisewide Implementation

Since the beginning of 2020, organisations have been working tirelessly to address the range of complex issues accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While this work continues for many organisations, forward-thinking business leaders are also looking beyond the crisis to operationalise new strategies that will help them build resilient enterprises for many decades to come.

Resilience is not about preventing operational outages or shocks but about how organisations prepare themselves to absorb events so they can recover quickly and continue to function or operate effectively. In a post-pandemic environment, technology will still create opportunities and vulnerabilities. Outsourcing to vendors and third-party contractors will provide efficiencies and reduce cost, but also create concentration and supply chain risks. The sophistication of cyber threats will continue to increase, and, surely, another ravaging pandemic in the not-so-distant future is no longer outside the realm of possibilities.

In consultation with operational risk experts and regulators around the world, Protiviti’s thought leaders have been discussing and weighing the key considerations that should be top of mind for business leaders as they strategise over how to build resilience and thrive in a new and increasingly risky business environment. The insights developed from these engagements have been compiled in a series of white papers published over the past year.

In this report, we share several of the insights on operational resilience. The report includes a detailed discussion on the board’s role in overseeing operational resilience and key considerations for directors; an analysis of the key concepts and practices that C-suite leaders need to understand to build operational resilience; and a checklist of practical steps firms need to implement a resilience plan across the enterprise.

Visit our Operational Resilience web site to access additional insights and our industry-leading operational resilience framework.