27 November 2018

Audit&Risk: Business leaders cite resilience as key priority

Business leaders have taken significant steps to shore up the resilience of their companies, but still face significant risks around technology, governance and skills shortages, according to the 2018 Organizational Resilience Index report published by BSI.

The annual survey is based on more than 800 interviews with senior executives across the globe and assesses organisations against 16 key elements, derived from international standards of best practice relevant to resilience.

Despite an overall perceived improvement in resilience, business leaders are wary of what the future holds. Technological challenges emerged this year as the most significant source of risk, identified by more than a fifth (21 per cent) of senior leaders. Governance concerns and skills shortages were similarly recognised as key challenges – more than six in ten considered one of these three factors a top risk for their organisation. Governance and accountability was the element that rose highest up the importance rankings this year.

As businesses have become more aware of the importance of resilience to long-term success, they have increased their focus on governance and internal training, which rose five places on the scale of importance. At the same time there was a significant reduction in the attention paid to product and service innovation. China was the notable exception to this. Senior Chinese leaders perceived innovation as the most important factor in preserving long-term resilience.

Of the 16 elements that make up organisational resilience, the report found that the most important elements were:

1. Financial Management 
2.  Leadership 
3. Vision and Purpose
4. Governance and Accountability 
5. Awareness and Training 
6. Reputational Risk 
7. Information and Knowledge Management 
8.  Business Continuity
9. Resource Management 
10. Culture
11. Adaptive Capacity
12. Innovation
13. Supplier Management 
14. Alignment 
15. Horizon Scanning 
16. Community Engagement 

Full article

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