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How to Build A Resilient Business
Monday 7th November 2022
Andrea Cassidy
With the world becoming ever more complex and unpredictable, businesses are looking for ways to remain resilient. With changing customer expectations and an uncertain future, businesses need to plan ahead with a scenario-based approach. Let's explore how you can build a resilient business that is capable of adapting quickly in response to change.
Scenario Planning
Scenario planning is a strategy that businesses have been using for decades. It involves creating several alternative futures and predicting what will happen based on different events occurring in the future. Using scenario-based thinking gives businesses an advantage, allowing them to prepare ahead of time should certain situations arise.
Scenario planning is a flexible and iterative process. It requires considering a range of possible outcomes, including sensitive ones, and collaborating with stakeholders internally and externally to respond to these changes in a timely manner.
When you're scenario planning, it's still important to keep in mind that you can't plan for everything. The focus is on developing a flexible and adaptable strategy that will enable your businesses to respond quickly when the unexpected happens.
Flexible Working
In order to be resilient, it's important to build yourself an adaptable structure. Flexible working, where employees can work outside traditional office hours or from home is becoming more popular because it allows people to better manage their lives and find a good balance between work and personal time.
When staff are happier, they're more productive and engaged at work, leading to a better working environment for everyone involved. A flexible working environment also allows business leaders to bring in talent that might have been overlooked with traditional hiring methods. People from all walks of life can contribute when they're given the opportunity to work remotely.
It's also worth considering how flexible working might impact business processes. For example, if your businesses is reliant on paper-based records management systems, you may need to rethink this in order to accommodate remote employees who are unable or unwilling to file their documents physically.
Use Data to Make Better Decisions
Data-driven decisions are increasingly important for businesses looking to be resilient. In fact, data-driven decision making is becoming the new standard in the business world because it helps businesses make informed choices that can impact revenues and customer satisfaction. The more your business uses data for decision making, the better informed your choices will be. Data can also help businesses to identify patterns and trends that might otherwise go unnoticed.
For example, data tools like Google Analytics allow businesses to measure traffic coming into their sites in real time, allowing them to make fast changes if necessary.
Use Cloud Technology and AI
For some businesses using cloud technology is a must-have. It allows workers from different locations to seamlessly collaborate with one another while also giving them access to up-to-date data via mobile devices.
AI is also becoming an increasingly valuable tool for business leaders. It has the potential to revolutionise customer service and communication because it can automate many of these tasks, freeing up employees' time to focus on more important matters.
The same AI tools can also be used to monitor a company's financials, detect security threats and guide employees towards making better business decisions.
Summary
Scenario planning, flexible working, using data for better decisions, cloud technology and AI are all important tools in building business resiliency in an ever-changing world. In order to stay competitive, businesses should focus on flexibility and adaptability rather than trying to predict the future or come up with a predetermined plan. In business, it pays to expect the unexpected and resilience is about being prepared to handle whatever comes your way.
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