Building a Resilient Capability

Rod Ratsma

As in many industries, the business continuity (BC) industry is littered with jargon. It would be sensible, therefore, to start by defining what “resilient” means. Hopefully, by the end of this chapter, you will also have a better understanding of what the term “resilient capability” means.

Typing resilient into Google returns two main definitions:

  1. (of a substance or object) ability to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed; and

  2. (of a person or animal) ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

I have been working as a consultant since the early 1990s, advising companies in all sectors and in all geographies about how to achieve resilience. This chapter will discuss what I think this means for organisations, and examine the various components one would expect to find in a resilient business. It will also explain some of the methodological steps that businesses should take in order to achieve and acquire these components, and relay some of my experiences with the many companies that I have worked with.

However, some of these organisations were not commercial businesses, and there are

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