Engaging the Board: Resilience Measured

Adrian Davis and Emmeline Skelton

The world is getting riskier. Organisations are increasingly vulnerable as business becomes more complex, virtual and interdependent. Building and sustaining a resilient business is both good commercial sense and a commercial imperative. Your corporate immune system is what protects your business from illness – if it is in good shape and something strikes, you can shrug it off. Organisations that enhance their immune system are able to tackle challenges, fend off illness and bounce back quicker – they possess resilience. The factors that define organisational resilience can be identified and measured.

Business continuity management (BCM) is an important part of an organisation’s immune system as it can assist an organisation to maintain its operational rhythm, deliver its services and products to its customers, and help to reduce or mitigate incidents such as supply chain interruptions, natural or man-made disasters or IT failures. Other components of the immune system include IT, cyber and information security, corporate communications, and health and safety.

However, a key challenge yet to be fully addressed by the BCM community is engaging top management, producing