September 2020
September 2020
September 2020

Summary

Disruption to business is not a new phenomenon. Be it pandemic, war, transformational technology or any other cause, the world has historically witnessed disruptions in some form or the other. While old ways of doing things collapse, businesses that invest in building resilience manage to grow uninterrupted. Balancing resilience and growth is the only way to survive the pressure test of disruptions while staying ahead in the race, and technology plays a major role in that. Read this article to understand how businesses can learn from the past and build a resilient organization that is also geared for growth.

How resilience works to future proof your business

Resilient enterprises have a high degree of flexibility that allows them to endure adversity and to come out unscathed. How does resilience help in reacting to a crisis and growing in the aftermath? If we consider the current COVID-19 crisis, the pattern we see is quite similar to the other disruptions that we have experienced in the past.

Let’s look at the three stages that every enterprise goes through from the time a crisis erupts to the post-crisis period.

In this stage, organizations try to grasp what the disruption is all about and react accordingly. It could be in the form of capitalizing on it if it’s a positive disruption or activating business continuity strategies. This phase is all about engaging with employees to keep the morale high, focus on maintaining productivity, engaging with clients to boost their confidence, sustaining business, and controlling cost to counter the uncertainties that lie ahead.

Here, organizations try to recover from the crisis by understanding the situation better and laying out strategies on how to respond in the short term. Typically characterized by a focus on improving productivity, building process and operational efficiencies, and continuing to engage with clients to ensure the sustenance of their business. This phase could also have elements on resetting strategies and evaluating alternate business models depending on the extent of the disruption and an understanding of the same.

The third phase is scaling growth in the ‘new normal’ scenario. Enterprises need to be prepared with strategies and execution plans to leverage the bounce back that’s anticipated in the economy. This is a critical stage since the first movers might have an early advantage over the competition and requires businesses to be agile to pivot and address emerging opportunities.

A large part of the solution can be addressed by leveraging technology smartly. Fortunately, we have technologies like AI & Automation at our disposal as never before. We have come across many reports on how COVID-19 has been the biggest accelerator of digital transformation. In fact, business resilience as a concept is an act of fine balance between the various phases — an ability to read the situation well and being nimble enough to respond with agility.

Loved what you read?

Get practical thought leadership articles on AI and Automation delivered to your inbox

Subscribe

Loved what you read?

Get practical thought leadership articles on AI and Automation delivered to your inbox

Subscribe

Balancing resilience with growth

In this ‘innovate or perish’ scenario, organizations that have invested in a proactive resilience strategy have a head start over others who have only begun investing in these initiatives. The organizations were also able to absorb the debilitating impact of the pandemic swiftly, without incurring huge costs.

Before the crisis unfolded, organizations focused sharply on growth and invested mostly in revenue-generating activities. For instance, many organizations did not invest in building resilience, be it a remote working infrastructure or adopting automation and AI. With businesses staring at a longer period of uncertainty than they previously anticipated, they are going on an overdrive to accelerate digital transformation and build systems that can help tackle the crisis. This has put the post-pandemic growth strategy in the back burner.

What we need today is a technology strategy that balances growth and resilience for businesses to continue without interruption, irrespective of any disruptions in the business environment. This calls for a careful evaluation of technologies that can contribute to both resilience and growth.

Most organizations are built on a set of processes and value chains that enable operations and differentiate against the competition. A strong digital foundation with AI infused in the value chain will help build a cognitive and connected enterprise. To quote an example, consumer experience has been a buzzword for long and has become all the more important in today’s uncertain times. Businesses can no longer rely on a transactional approach, but need to think with intelligence and agility. A successful enterprise is characterized by its ability to provide contextual, personalized, and meaningful customer interactions, all the while delivering exceptional experiences. This is made possible by building cognitive capabilities that can unlock the information and insights in not just a single value chain but by connecting them across the organization.

One of the biggest areas impacted due to COVID-19 has been both the local and global supply chain. We witnessed many stock-out situations in retail outlets across countries. Hence, it becomes crucial for an enterprise to have visibility across the demand side and the supply side of the value chain to ensure customer satisfaction, without missing out on new business opportunities.
Unstructured data—document text, voice, images, videos—accounts for almost 80 percent of an enterprise’s data. Imagine tapping into these documents with AI to gain real-time insights. This can transform the entire decision-making process of an organization and provide the ability to function better across all three phases of react, recover, and grow.
This technology continues to evolve fast with higher integration of AI and is one of the most preferred ways to maintain productivity and lower costs, during both normal and challenging times. With many benefits like being efficient, scalable, and affordable, automation also helps businesses maintain uninterrupted operations, especially during situations around business continuity or unplanned workplace closure.

While resilience demands investments in transformational technologies and in creating flexibilities in the business, growth demands investments in revenue-generating areas with a focus on cost-reduction. Building resilience takes time and investment and, above all, a robust strategy. In the present challenging times, this has become all the more important. With the initial phase of reacting to the crisis now through, companies are gearing up to operate for an extended time under the same uncertainty. This is the ideal time to invest in building a proactive resilience strategy to stand the pressure test of future disruptions while making sure that the long-term strategic vision aligns with growth. Organizations that successfully achieve this delicate balance between resilience and growth stand a better chance to continue their business uninterrupted overcoming the external and destabilizing forces with ease.