Building Resilience to Survive and Grow

How to Be Responsive and Agile in an Uncertain World

COVID-19 and Brexit, two profound disruptions, have placed new, unprecedented strains on the ability of many companies to flex and respond in uncertain times. These events have highlighted that data analytics alone cannot predict the future in the face of such discontinuities. Without the benefits of forewarning, companies have had to react as new events unfolded. Those with more resilient business models which were designed with a degree of flexibility to adapt and evolve to trends saw the benefit of their investment.

However, many companies found that the degree of flexibility they had was insufficient to cope when hit by such unforeseen discontinuities and rapid shifts. For example, FTI Consulting's Resilience Barometer (September 2021) identified that 75% of companies found their crisis response plans were insufficient to deal with the challenges of COVID-19, despite 80% of G20 companies using AI and analytics to monitor for scenarios that impact risk and compliance. Now, more than ever, businesses need to rethink and reshape their ability to sense and to rapidly respond to the unknown, and to develop appropriate contingencies to tackle potential scenarios successfully.

In this article, our experts review recent major disruptors and how leading companies survived these in the short-term, but also explore the longer-term changes that businesses must consider making to their approach to ensure they are adaptable and able to thrive when faced with unforeseen challenges. In our view, businesses must take an outside-in view of their situation and challenge existing norms, throughout the organisation, and make key trade-off decisions around where to invest in responsiveness and agility, and where the focus should be cost optimisation.