“Over the last few years, we have seen the concept of ‘Resilience Engineering’ take hold. Usually, risk management approaches look at things in the rear-view mirror – we take past incidents and project from them future probabilities. We take hindsight and from it expect to produce foresight. Resilience Engineering seeks ways to improve robustness, reliability, and flexibility of processes and organizations, continually monitoring and revising risk levels. The result of Resilience Engineering is to develop adaptive organizational operations that can flex in the event of equipment breakdown, production demands or financial or market pressures that happen in real life. Success in Resilience Engineering gives the ability to bend before the wind, rather than break – to anticipate that ‘unknown unknowns’ will happen, to adapt and move on and not to fail.’ (Hiles, A. 2011: xxx1, Business Continuity Management, Wiley: Chichester)
All businesses need business continuity planning. Whether you are a multi-national operating on the global scene, a small to medium enterprise, a micro business or even a sole trader, you need to plan for future events that may or may not happen that could have a negative impact on your business continuing to operate.
We use business analysis tools such as those developed by the McKinsey School of Management (e.g. the ‘7S’ Framework) to help you forward plan and maintain a sense of normality during periods of flux and turmoil, and to ensure that you build a more resilient organisation.