“Resilience is the ability to use what life throws at you as an advantage…

… and to rebound from the setbacks.”

Business life is becoming increasingly difficult as companies cope with disruption arising from a world that is changing fast and becoming more unpredictable. Customers demand more, markets and industries change constantly and technology is developing exponentially.

You would think the bigger the company, the easier it is to ride out a storm, but that isn’t necessarily the case. Large businesses are challenged in being flexible, adaptable and responsive with complex command chains that slow information moving up and instructions going down. Alternatively, smaller companies can be more agile, fast paced and responsive but their ability to react to disruption is at the behest of their leadership.

Resilience, regardless of size, is your ability to adapt, recover, and move forward in the face of adversity, and in today’s markets, being resilient is not only desirable, but essential.

Why do we need to be resilient?

All companies have to cope with unexpected challenges they didn’t foresee.

One of the biggest upheavals to the business landscape that I have ever witnessed was the impact the pandemic had on companies, their markets, customers, employees and production capability. The year 2020 should have raised significant concerns among CEOs globally.

Some companies struggled to survive but those who were more resilient were able to cope with disruptive events and were in a better position to develop survival strategies that could be delivered by an adaptive workforce.

It was being agile and innovative that gave those organisations the resilience to ride such storms and go on to long-term profitable growth.

But being resilient is something you need to bake into a company. An organisation needs to be proactively prepared for market changes and potential disruptions, both as a business and in the workforce.

Leaders looking to build resilience should ensure their organisations are strategically positioned through being prepared, adaptable and innovative.

“Being Prepared”

An organisation needs to be prepared for disruptive eventualities, just like the Scouting movement slogan says. In times of crisis, you don’t want to be scrambling for a solution. Instead you need to be able to analyse problems, identify risks and action solutions to prevent or lessen their impact.

Start by:

Being Aware – Industry trends and competitor activity can provide insights to stay ahead of the curve as resilient companies don’t just react, they anticipate.

Keep enough reserves – Always ensure you have enough liquidity to absorb shocks as not all disruptions come with furlough schemes.

Knowledge & Upskilling – A highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce will have the necessary mindset to be prepared for disruptions in the market and be able to pivot accordingly.

Multi-skilling – Support employees to gain new skills and do several jobs. It allows for a flatter hierarchy and improves innovation and decision-making.

Supply Chain Resilience – Build relationships with several suppliers, thinking nearshore where possible to avoid geographic disruptions.

Collaborate with the Techies – Harnessing new technologies empowers a business to adapt to change quicker. Cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and process automation can reduce vulnerability and improve agility.

“Being Adaptable”

Employees operating under a tight command and control structure cannot be as versatile as those who operate where innovation and agility are embedded. They just won’t be used to the experience of decision making and pivoting roles quickly enough to keep the wheels moving!

Being adaptable means having:

Agility – As the world changes quickly, so must your company. To enhance resilience empower the workforce and give them the tools and environment to respond swiftly to market changes.

Flexibility – Being rigid makes it hard to be open to new ideas and being ready to change plans as needed. When you do need to adapt quickly, a flexible approach to work helps.

Multi-level Decision Making – Empower teams to act quickly so that they can respond faster to change.

Supportive Leadership – Strong leaders support, enable and foster organizational agility, creating an environment where the workforce are empowered and capable of adapting to change.

Risk-taking – Resilience is essential for getting through disruption, setbacks and challenges. Failure should be viewed as a learning opportunity and encourage experimentation, reflection, and continuous improvement.

Employee Attitudes – When employees cling to the past, they don’t look for solutions to problems that could be holding the company back in times of disruption.

“Being Innovative”

The traits that make an organisation innovative are what makes it resilient such as critical thinking, encouraging different perspectives, nurturing curiosity for knowledge, questioning assumptions, embracing challenges and above all, being agile.

An innovation culture can make you more resilient through:

Product diversification – Expand product offering to service new customer segments or geographies. Diversifying revenue streams can mitigate the impact of market changes.

Business Model Innovation – The same applies to the markets and customers you serve. The pandemic showed that building resilience into your business model is key to survival in a disruptive world.

Being internally collaborative – Siloed working creates walls and segmentation. Working from home was easier for a collaborative workforce as they already had the relationships in place to overcome the challenges of remote working.

Case Study

If there is one thing that history has taught us it is that the market doesn’t care how brilliant you were last year. It cares how resilient you are today.

Take Blockbuster, who lost out to Netflix by not reacting fast enough to industry changes (shifting from tapes to discs) and by the time they did, they were in a constant game of catch up that they failed to win. Seemingly, the traits of resilience were missing from the Blockbuster business mix. But it’s often harder for successful brands to see and react to industry changes as they are already providing what their customers expect.

Key Takeaways

To summarise, building business resilience throughout the enterprise requires:

• Getting the right behaviour from your employees. Look after them, train them, and nurture them. They are your number one asset.
• Don’t put your eggs in one basket. Drive resilience by diversifying your product portfolio and constantly reviewing new markets rather than focusing on one area.
• Actively monitor the world that surrounds and influences your business, the industry it operates in, markets you play in and the customers you serve. Use as an early warning system for possible disruption.
• Reduce the complexity of your business by simplifying legacy systems, processes, and administration. Resilient organizations are simple not complex.
• Recruit resilient people and foster an open innovative culture to increase resilience.

Finally, building resilience into your business is a marathon rather than a sprint. Look for ways to change what you do and how you do it, and keep looking because challenges will never stop appearing.

But with resilience, you can put yourself in a position to ride the storm and move forward.

About the author, Gary Thompson.

Gary is a seasoned transformation leader, with over 25 years of experience delivering enterprise change across financial services, conglomerates, and regulated sectors.

He partners with boards and executive teams to drive digital enablement, regulatory compliance, and innovation-led growth. His expertise spans operating model redesign, AI-powered automation, and 0–1 product builds, with a track record of measurable impact across the UK, Europe, and MENA.