5 pillars of operational resilience

Risk identification and assessment involves identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks that could impact an organization's ability to function. By leveraging AI and machine learning (ML) technologies, organizations can proactively identify and classify potential risks. Anticipating (and resolving) problems before they come is key to building a comprehensive business continuity plan, which in turn directly impacts an organization’s resilience. 

This pillar of operational resilience includes the mapping of interconnections and interdependencies. Organizations exist within a web of interconnections and a network of interdependencies from distributed architectures to third-party reliance and global economic currents. While this may be the product of a technologically connected world, mapping these interconnections and interdependencies is vital to identifying potential failure points and achieving operational resilience.

Most businesses rely on third-party vendors and partners for critical services, making third-party dependency management essential for risk identification and assessment. An incident in a third-party service that results in a disruption on their end will inevitably affect your organization. Operational resilience depends on establishing clear processes like backup services and containment protocols.

Business continuity planning — the steps an organization and its people must take in the event of a crisis — focuses on internal processes and lays out identification and assessment methodologies and solutions to potential disruptions. As the technological landscape evolves and different risks develop, continuous testing of the continuity plan is crucial.

For example, a global manufacturing company might conduct regular disaster recovery drills to simulate various disruption scenarios, such as supply chain breakdowns or IT failures. These drills help the company refine its business continuity plans, ensuring it can maintain production and delivery schedules even during crises.

Incident response and recovery is the process of identifying, responding to, and recovering from unplanned events or incidents. Incidents vary in size and scope — from hardware and connectivity issues to network errors and cyber attacks. Incident management covers a variety of potentially disruptive events. Successful incident response and recovery require speed, flexibility, and clear channels of communication. Done well, incident management allows operations to continue during response with minimal to no disruptions — the key to that? Planning. 

An incident response and recovery plan details who does what in the case of any given incident. It identifies stakeholders, expected resolution timelines, and escalation and documentation protocols. When an incident occurs, IT teams will work to identify, log, and classify it and then contain the issue and diagnose it and finally, resolve and review it. 

Observability and security monitoring play an important role in this process, helping determine the root cause of any red flag. Providing complete visibility into your systems, observability tools help teams patch and resolve issues without interrupting services altogether.

Crisis management ensures that an organization can continue to function and deliver critical services during disruptive events like unplanned downtime or cyber attacks. This involves proactive preparation, identifying potential risks, and developing plans to mitigate them. A crisis response framework is key, outlining roles, responsibilities, and communication channels to coordinate a swift response. Business continuity planning (BCP) plays a vital role by ensuring that essential functions continue despite disruptions. 

Not only is the technological response important, but a strong communication strategy is also essential in crisis management. It keeps staff aligned and manages stakeholder expectations during disruptions. Once the crisis subsides, the focus shifts to recovery, restoring normal operations quickly and efficiently. This stage also offers an opportunity to analyze the crisis response and adapt strategies to improve future resilience. Effective crisis management ensures that organizations not only withstand disruptions but also become stronger and more adaptable for future challenges.

Organizations build adaptive governance and culture by investing in leadership and resources that promote active learning from incidents, helping to better prepare for future disruptions. This includes fostering a culture that encourages transparency, continuous improvement, and collaboration across teams. 

By embedding resilience into decision-making processes and their overall culture, organizations can swiftly adapt to changing circumstances, leverage feedback from past incidents, and implement flexible strategies that evolve with emerging risks. Adaptive governance ensures that resilience isn't just a reactive measure but a proactive approach, enabling organizations to respond dynamically to challenges while maintaining operational stability.

Your business runs on data. Putting that data to work with actionable insights starts with implementing search, observability, and security solutions that work together seamlessly. Finding answers quickly, using all of your data wherever it lives and connecting workflows lead to fewer blindspots, more efficient incident resolution, and ultimately, operational resilience.