Resilience is very much a hot topic in the business continuity profession, but there seems to be very little agreement about what we mean by resilience; where it sits in relation to business continuity management; and what its scope should be. This article aims at bringing some clarity and will explore the following questions:
What exactly, is resilience and do we share a meaningful definition, or is it just hype?
Does it have enough value or substance to differentiate it from what we already have?
How much resilience do we need or is it OK to be vague about it?
Where does resilience naturally sit within the organization? Does it make a difference?
What does a resilience programme look like and where should we look for guidance?
In 2014, the British Standards Institution (BSI) published BS 65000 ‘Guidance on Organizational Resilience’. In its wake, waves of business continuity managers have been transformed into resilience managers, following the trend or perhaps pre-empting the arrival of ISO’s 22316 resilience offering, due in April 2017. But have things really changed or did resilience just become fashionable? Are we seeing a re-branding, a seized opportunity to balance-off rarely needed business continuity with more general defences that regularly add material value, or is it inevitable evolution?
In its introduction to BS 65000 BSI states that resilience is “…a strategic objective intended to help an organization survive and prosper …the ability to anticipate, prepare, respond and adapt… to minor everyday events to acute shocks and chronic or incremental change”. There is of course much more in the document and the introduction alone runs to four paragraphs, but at first reading are you convinced? Try the following test:
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