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Business resilience: Leaping forward in hard times
Business resilience can be defined as the ability of a company not only to respond to the emergencies, but also the ability to recover quickly.
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It’s oh so quiet: A mall in Senayan, Central Jakarta, is relatively empty of customers as retail businesses face the adverse effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The global epidemic is putting the resilience of Indonesia’s economy to test. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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usiness resilience is a topic that is usually discussed when we face a crisis, though we realize that building business resilience is actually not an instant and ad-hoc process. When COVID-19 began spreading to many countries, the outbreak became a hot topic among businesspeople, particularly because the impact of the epidemic on the economy and business is estimated to be large, in line with the possibility of an extensive occurrence and a longer time needed to resolve this outbreak.
The business world, which is increasingly connected and interdependent, is one of the explanations as to why COVID-19 has a significant and extensive impact on business. The synergy outcome that has been experienced so far due to the connectedness is a reinforcing loop that will give an acceleration effect, with positive acceleration in a flourishing situation and negative acceleration in a downturn.
Business resilience can be defined as the ability of a company not only to respond to the emergencies, but also the ability to recover quickly. In responding to the pressure, the business “shape” may change but after the pressure is settled, not only does the business return quickly to its original condition, but its resilience enables it to grasp the position much better than before.
You might be able to imagine a plastic ruler that you hold at both ends. You press in the middle and then you release the pressure. That is a metaphor of resilience. Many frameworks on business resilience have been proposed, but I am interested in exploring the paradigm on developing business resilience.
There are three principles that a company or enterprise must possess to achieve business resilience.
Back to the metaphor, resilience can occur when you have a firm grip at the ends of the ruler. Without a strong grip, resilience will be absent. Leadership is the most important anchor for building the resilience.
There are many elements of leadership, but trust is the most vital substance that can anchor business resilience. Trust cannot be built overnight. Organizations that have solid trust in their leaders and their leadership will be in a better position to form resilience.
