• News
  • 20 January 2021

There are several key challenges for business leaders to address in order to plan, move forward and grow.

Last year impacted many businesses from operation shutdowns, supply-chain disruptions, cashflow pressures and staffing issues.

During the initial response phase, business leaders were faced with making improvised decisions to minimise the short-term impact.

Now several months later, businesses are faced with navigating the next phases of business recovery and rejuvenation.

Below outlines our suggested approach to resilience and recovery. Armed with these insights, businesses may be in a better position to prepare themselves for business disruption and find their competitive advantage.

This is the pinnacle of building resilience as without it, operational resilience cannot be sustained.

Operational Resilience

Business disruption on operations is centred on people, supply chain, technological, governance and risk control.

Businesses need to seize the opportunity to reinvent and permanently change the way they operate by redefining success and how to measure it effectively.

Key challenges faced:

  • Past lockdowns have restricted movement between suppliers and customers.
  • Immediate assessment of resources available and required to achieve success.
  • Improve internal processes (to get more done with less resources or tap into strengths).
  • Determine which parts of the business, by product or service, needs to be temporarily halted.
  • Limited understanding of how much working capital may be tied up in inventory.
  • Managing high-risk contracts with suppliers, and or service providers.
  • Need to use new and untested suppliers in unfamiliar markets with unknown integrity or history due to supply constraints.
  • Review whether collaboration tools and remote working solutions are robust enough to cope with demand.
  • Leverage real-time data to provide insights into rapidly changing behaviours of customers.
  • Increased opportunities for fraud given weaker controlled environment imposed by remote working.
  • Reinvent processes, controls and systems to reflect the ‘new normal’ and lessons learnt during the crisis.

Checklist for building resilience:

  • Narrow down the core business and how to protect it from further disruptions.
  • Conduct a strategic review of the existing operating model, with aspirations to innovate and rebuild a plan for the recovery phase.
  • Re-assess commercial agreements and be prepared to re-negotiate for terms that minimise risk.
  • Ensure feedback and continuous improvement mechanisms are in place.
  • Shift the mind-set from crisis mode to the ‘new normal’.
  • Identify and adopt best practice developed during the time of the crisis.
  • Reinforce the business' core values with all stakeholders, particularly customers, suppliers, service holders and staff.
  • Offer a program to support the mental health and wellbeing of staff and reduce reliance on workers' compensation.
  • Foster a culture of innovation (using a bottom up approach) to gain a competitive advantage.
  • Identify the point of differentiation from your competitors and revise the marketing plan.
  • Implement company policies and processes that support flexible working.
  • Rely on real-time data to help raise early alerts of potential disruptions and issues to proactively manage performance and drive prompt resolution.
  • Consider replacing high risk or low value-adding processes with automated alternatives if feasible.
  • Restructure supply chains to be more flexible and agile in order to cope with a crisis.
  • Provide customers with ability to access information using social media channels to reduce the volumes of inbound calls and frustration at long wait times.
  • Review IT risks and control frameworks, particularly in the area of fraud.
  • Prepare a risk controls health check to test that everything is working as expected. Make adjustments to mitigate risk to appropriate level.
  • Identify vulnerabilities and develop viable solutions for activities which were severely disrupted.
  • Undertake dynamic risk assessments to understand the impact of risks on operations.

 

As you move your business away from the challenges faced in 2020 and plan for the future, there are a lot of steps to take, which can seem daunting at the offset.
To help you create a clear recovery plan with ease to increase your business resilience for the future, you can contact one of our specialist Advisors at your local firm listed below.

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