Building Business Resilience

Right now, a number of our clients are feeling that their resilience and their ability to rise to challenges in order to ensure their business continuity are being stretched to the limit. As a business owner myself, I can entirely empathise.

We may be coming out of lockdown soon (in theory), but the effects of the last year could continue beyond the Government target dates for relaxing restrictions or raise their ugly head further down the line. If that happens, business resilience will be vital for survival, but have you given any thought to how you can improve your own business’ durability?

What does business resilience mean?

Business resilience refers to a business’ ability to survive a shock and adapt to obstacles and disruption whilst being able to maintain business operations. This encompasses crisis management and business continuity.

What needs to be considered

The global pandemic is revealing just how the unexpected can impact a business and the people who work in it. Taking time to think about the worst case scenarios you could face and then taking initial measures to protect what’s most important within your business will give you greater control should the worst actually happen.

When thinking of potential risk, you could consider:

• Failure of a business-critical technology;
• Natural disasters, such as flooding;
• Cyber crime;
• Economic disruption;
• Supply chain issues;
• Civil unrest, such as strikes; and
• Another lockdown.

Whilst this isn’t exhaustive, it will hopefully give you a good start. Risks affect businesses in different ways and it’s important to consider what’s in your business toolbox to drive resilience against them so that you can recover. Areas which may require resilience-building include:

• Workforce: Essential in any effort to address challenges and maintain continuity. Their ability to meet such challenges will depend on wellbeing, skills, knowledge and a sense of empowerment to make critical decisions;
• Operations: How do you maintain operations for a viable level of output? This is about more than physical space or equipment; cyber attacks can disable businesses and regulatory changes can severely impact the way a business operates;
• Commercial: Retaining existing customers, the ability to continue generating new customers and maintaining communications to underpin a viable business income; and
• Financial: Cash flow, accessibility to additional financial support, understanding financial performance and keeping a “spare” cash reserve will impact on the financial resilience of your business.

Make a business resilience plan

Building resilience requires planning that incorporates both disaster recovery and continuity. Creating a plan will give you time to reflect on the potential risks to your business and then create a robust response to mitigate their impact.

Some simple steps to creating a resilience plan:

• Identification of risks;
• Analysis of business impact;
• Identification of business-critical people, processes and resources;
• Emergency initial response plan;
• Disaster recovery steps;
• Communications plan; and
• Regular reviews of the plan.

Again, whilst this isn’t exhaustive, it will hopefully give you a good start. Building resilience protects you against losses and instils confidence in customers and suppliers, giving you a competitive edge. Now is the time, while the lessons we’ve all learned about running a business through a pandemic are fresh in our minds, to create or revisit your business resilience planning.

Talking to our business advice team at Black and White Accounting will help you to identify business priorities and risks and benefit from the insights we’ve gained from helping many similar businesses through these challenging times. But no matter how you do it, take time to plan for the worst now, rather that wait for it to happen.

Need expert business and financial support?

The current climate creates an almost unique time when business planning and strategy is even harder than usual times. However, it is even more key than ever, to be as prepared as you can be, to survive and then thrive as a business, to achieve your objectives through business resilience.

We’d love to hear more about you, your business and how we can support you, especially through your unique challenges and how 2020 impacted you. Please get in touch with us today by contacting Black and White Chartered Certified Accountants, populating the “Got a Question” form on the right, or calling us on 0800 140 464.

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