Study finds that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a ‘massive increase in awareness of the need for operational resilience’
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- Published: Friday, 24 July 2020 08:29
Swiss Post Solutions (SPS) and NelsonHall have published a joint study, ‘Preparing for the Next Crisis: A Guide to Building Operational Resilience’, which aims to assist organizations in identifying and preparing for any operational challenges that are likely to emerge.
The study found that the ongoing pandemic has led to a ‘massive increase in awareness of the need for operational resilience’, with 98 percent of organizations now aware of its importance. Companies have faced major challenges, such as transitioning employees to home-based work locations while ensuring regulatory obligations are met, and coping with the steep increase in demand for customer communication. In fact, only 16 percent of interviewed organizations perceive that their overall operations are highly resilient to future crises that would require major changes in work location, with customer care particularly vulnerable.
The pandemic has ‘dramatically underscored the crucial requirement for enterprises to implement measures which guarantee business continuity and to remain resilient in any prevailing market condition’. 96 percent of the surveyed companies recognize the limitations of their business continuity plan. Only 10 percent of executives perceive that their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are being met consistently as a result of the crisis, with customer communications and onboarding, order fulfilment, and sales support experiencing the largest negative impact.
Some of the steps that organizations will take to enhance their operational resilience in readiness for the next crisis include increasing their flexibility and preparedness for home-based work, ensuring a cohesive, end-to-end approach to operational resilience, and revisiting outsourcing partner selection criteria, collaboration models, and governance.
Read the study (PDF).
