A roadmap for adapting and accelerating

Anyone questioning the need for digital resiliency should read the experts’ predictions for 2020, back in 2019. As the new year began, many analysts were more worried about the escalation of the US-China trade conflict or the US Fed raising rates than, say, some strange outbreak reported in Wuhan¹.

More than a year later, we’re still reeling from the lesson in disruption taught to us by the entirety of 2020.

Disruption has always been part of the business landscape, but last year saw it accelerating to breakneck speed. The most forward-thinking companies pivoted to refining their digital business transformation strategy: a McKinsey study found that businesses' digital adoption has “vaulted five years forward... in a matter of around eight weeks.”² Less fortunate companies had to completely rebuild their business models, or watch as their industry crumbled beneath their feet.

The businesses that survived (and indeed, thrived) through all this tumult had digital resiliency baked into their business model, or learned to adopt it in a hurry.

IDC defines digital resiliency as “the ability for an organisation to rapidly adapt to business disruptions by leveraging digital capabilities to not only restore business operations but also capitalise on the changed conditions³.”

Digital resiliency should be part and parcel of any organisation’s digital transformation strategy, executed across the board with complete buy-in from the C-suite. A recent IDC survey found that 45.6% of Asia-Pacific executives agreed with digital resiliency as “both a business and technical imperative,” requiring management from a senior leadership level⁴.

Yet as important as it’s become to today’s organisations, digital resiliency has been somewhat complicated for companies to pull off.

Pre-pandemic, few companies had accounted for “black swan” events like COVID-19, leaving the vast majority scrambling to respond afterward.

Present-day business resiliency plans now support pandemic-specific responses like a remote workforce and increased automation, but may not necessarily address future, hard-to-foresee disruptions. The new benchmark for digital resiliency requires a strategy that can adapt to such disruptions, and capitalise on any changed conditions afterward.

A robust digital resiliency framework responds to individual crises through three distinct phases: an initial direct response phase; an intermediate optimisation phase; and a long-term innovation phase.

Respond and restore

When a crisis hits, an organisation’s immediate priorities should include both employee safety and business continuity.

The increase in “work from home” and “hybrid” work policies is a case in point, acknowledged early on by Singapore National Development Minister Lawrence Wong as “critical in our fight against COVID-19 [to] reduce the need for daily movement of people, and minimise the risks of the virus flaring up again.”⁵

At this stage, organisations should zero in on short-term opportunities with tangible benefits. For example, Thai hospitals are increasingly adopting 5G technology to cope with increased data traffic demand and upcoming developments like 5G-based telemedicine⁶. Employees, on the other hand, must focus on reskilling and adapting to the new status quo.

Expand and optimise

The first phase is designed to help organisations survive the initial shock of disruption, the second phase should help them adapt to the new reality.

Post-crisis territory tends to be terra incognita for traditional forecasting approaches. To manage such uncertainty at this stage, a smart resiliency strategy makes heavy use of data-driven, analytics-led approaches, empowering decision-makers from all levels of the organisation by providing them with powerful cloud-based analytical tools.

“I’ve seen first-hand how COVID-19 has created flatter, more agile organisations with empowered frontline employees,” explains Andrew Duncan, UK Head for Infosys Consulting. “Having such dynamic teams is often the most effective and scalable way to build resiliency into business operations.”⁷

Accelerate and innovate

Once an organisation gains the ability to manage post-crisis uncertainty in the second phase, they can use this third phase to reimagine their business models to account for the changed conditions.

How can the business adapt to permanent shifts in consumer and employee behaviour? Where will the organisation reposition itself amidst an irreversible disruption in business and industry models? What transformation will be necessary to thrive in the changed landscape?

These questions—properly addressed—can help resilient companies use the lessons of crisis to stay ahead of their competition and emerge stronger in the long run.

Digital resiliency strategy requires a business-technology platform that can adapt and deliver according to the needs of each phase and beyond.

At minimum, such a platform should have features that protect against cyberattacks, and help it adapt handily to the changing demands of the market, customers, and the workforce.

For instance, your resilience infrastructure might be protected by the cloud-based Trustwave Fusion platform used by Singtel’s cybersecurity services. The platform responds to threats in real time, allowing quicker recovery from incidents. A more active threat response might come from having Singtel’s Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) on board: their experts offer assistance on-demand, leveraging industry knowledge, learned best practices and technical know-how.

Other parts of one’s resilience technology platform might require a multi-cloud approach to ensure continuous service.

Using different cloud services for a variety of applications can help organisations create a robust, redundant network—one that stays in service even when different parts of the cloud are unavailable. Cloud-based networking platforms like Singtel Liquid-X integrate multi-cloud access, analytics and security—providing a flexible, cost-efficient way to access and manage cloud workloads globally.

The cloud can also free organisations from costly but fragile legacy infrastructure, connecting them instead to scalable, flexible services like Singtel SD-Connect that creates a direct, software-defined network between data centres and leading cloud service providers.

Once new developments like 5G in Singapore become mainstream, you’ll even free your cloud infrastructure from relying on physical connections. With 5G’s high speed, high capacity, and low latency wireless broadband connections, you can manage data-intensive operations from anywhere within the network, and even scale up Internet of Things (IoT) deployments that can open new opportunities for your business.

Each of these components plays its part in an overarching digital resiliency framework that can prepare the organisation for disruptions on a 2020-level scale.

Creating a digital resiliency strategy isn’t easy; it’s not supposed to be. It requires taking a longer view of business timescales⁸; securing one’s infrastructure from cyber-breaches without compromising its usability; adjusting to changing realities on the ground; and using hard-earned lessons to improve your organisation’s agility and competitiveness.

By combining digital resiliency into your business transformation strategy, you’ll find yourself in charge of an organisation that’s ready to take on the next 2020-level disruption, however small it starts out and however big it ends up being.

Let us help with your digital resiliency strategy.
 

¹ IHS Markit, Top 10 economic predictions for 2020, December 2019.

² McKinsey & Company, The COVID-19 recovery will be digital: A plan for the first 90 days, May 2020.

³ IDC, Why digital resiliency is critical to building the future enterprise, March 2021.

⁴ IDC, A digital resiliency framework for the future enterprise, February 2021.

⁵ Channel News Asia, Employers must adjust mindsets, embrace working from home as new normal: Lawrence Wong, May 2020.

⁶ Bangkok Post, AIS uses 5G, robots in pandemic war, April 2020.

⁷ IT Pro Portal, Building resilience through data-driven decision making, September 2020.

⁸ BCG Henderson Institute, Fractal strategy, April 2020.