Sean offers a clear and concise definition, stating that operational resilience is "the ability to identify, anticipate, and mitigate risks to help prevent future issues while accelerating responsiveness to ongoing disruptions when they do occur." He emphasizes that it's a holistic approach, achieved by "understanding the different parts of the business and how they interact across teams, workflows, and tools, while driving a culture of intentional learning and adaptation."
The consequences of failing to achieve operational resilience can be severe. As Sean notes, "More than one quarter (28%) of IT leaders said service outages can cause brand damage." This can have a ripple effect, impacting customer trust and ultimately, the bottom line.
So, what's holding organizations back? Interestingly, it's not always a lack of tools. Sean highlights a key finding from the report: "More IT leaders cited workflows (51%) and the size of their teams (36%) as the biggest hindrances to exercising operational resilience during disruption." This underscores a crucial point: resilience is as much about people and processes as it is about technology.
Ultimately, Sean argues that "When organizations can improve their tools, teams and processes, they can create a culture of operational resilience that breaks down silos and efficiently responds in the face of disruption."
