Confidence in an era of change
In an era of constant change, the risks and threats to global organizations never sleep. Today’s practitioners recognize that they need dynamic risk management, operational resilience, and business continuity (BC) programs – and they need to be agile in implementing them. As crises continue to cascade, being able to understand how your organization works, and how it can bend but not break when faced with challenges, has never been more critical.
At our recent customer summit, Compass 2023, attendees flocked to a key panel discussion on how continuity and resilience leaders should work with key stakeholders across their organizations to build dynamic business continuity and operational resilience programs and, ultimately, increase their confidence during unprecedented and ever-changing times. The panel was stacked with senior executives representing a brokerage firm, a global bank, a pharmaceuticals provider, a leading technology company, and more. These industry leaders specifically talked about stakeholder buy-in being essential to success and how they plan to integrate emerging technology into their business continuity and operational resilience programs to drive efficiency.
Our customers shared amazing insights, and numerous key takeaways came out of the session that focused on how continuity and resilience leaders are approaching business continuity and operational resilience today and the critical aspects that make their programs successful.
Stakeholder engagement is critical
Stakeholder buy-in is vital to the success of any program. Convincing peers and leaders to care about business continuity and operational resilience is the first step – but as several of our panelists shared, it required that they use multiple skills that have been acquired throughout their careers to effectively “talk” to executives. These industry leaders agreed that it’s critical to bring together various risk disciplines including cybersecurity, third-party risk, and business continuity to effectively leverage data as an asset in these important conversations and provide a holistic picture of the organization’s resilience posture. When they were able to communicate with executives in the executive’s own language, they were able to transform the conversation and ultimately get senior leadership to really care about and invest in their projects.
While everyone in an organization turns to their BC or operational resilience team to guide them in a crisis, ensuring that peers do their part and enter accurate and updated continuity and resilience data on a consistent basis and in a timely manner has been an ongoing challenge for many practitioners. A representative of one financial services firm said: “Most of the time, I feel like a salesperson trying to sell the idea of business continuity across the organization to people who don’t think about it daily.” Another Fortune 500 customer highlighted that “GRC speak” or industry jargon just confuses leaders and service owners.
To remedy this issue, the customer shared that their organization has structured its business continuity program like a product. They have built personas of service owners that were end users across the organization and have generated value in their daily workstreams by speaking a common language that they all understand. With this approach, the customer has been able to give leaders the data required to make risk-informed decisions confidently. The panelists all agreed that if you can provide efficiencies, time savings, and data that is specifically relevant to each stakeholder’s role (along with data insights that were previously unattainable or unnoticed), it will be much easier to secure critical buy-in.
When a crisis does occur, one panel member reiterated the old political cliché: “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Once a crisis is remediated, it is critical to take the time to speak to your leaders about lessons learned, program expansion, and areas where you need additional resources to succeed. Consistent discussions like this will enable you to better adapt to evolving challenges and be prepared for potential future disruptions.
Do more with less
Generative AI can streamline many cumbersome and manual processes, allowing organizations to more easily gather stakeholder buy-in and achieve dynamic business continuity and operational resilience programs. These are the reasons why Fusion® recently launched Fusion Resilience Copilot™, a generative AI-powered assistant that accelerates continuity and resilience teams’ productivity and effectiveness. Throughout Compass 2023, practitioners expressed their anticipation for the technology and discussed how they plan to use it in their day-to-day operations. Customers specifically expressed their desire to embrace AI to automate manual work, improve reporting, quickly create board decks, and generate measurable time savings while enhancing data quality.
Another Fusion customer shared how AI can be a multiplying force for business continuity and operational resilience teams. Rather than hiring people at every level, AI can truly serve as the organization’s copilot and enable existing staff to focus on other strategic value-added tasks. The customer noted, “AI will not take away jobs; it will make our jobs have far more purpose.”
Look at the bigger picture
To put your organization in the best position to weather the unknown, you must sometimes take a step back from your role, and even your company, and critically assess your business continuity and operational resilience programs. In today’s interconnected world, you must consider how your failure would impact your customers, their customers, the broader market, and beyond. For example, think about the software provider for a towing company: if that software provider goes down in the middle of winter and takes the towing company down with it, people might be stranded on the side of the road for hours in freezing temperatures.
Organizations must be prepared for potential unknowns, aim for stakeholder buy-in, and leverage quality data that enables dynamic business continuity and operational resilience. Combine this agility with the power of AI, and organizations will be able to better streamline their continuity and resilience processes and allocate time and resources where necessary.
Want to learn more about how Fusion can strengthen your business continuity and operational resilience programs? Request a demo for a deep dive into our solutions or contact us to learn more about how Fusion Resilience Copilot™ specifically can help your team accelerate time-to-value, enhance decision-making, increase productivity, and promote proactive risk management and dynamic business continuity.
