Introduction
Business managers contend with risk in normal daily operations and try to control it to ensure their organizations remain functional. Business continuity and resilience are key factors in responding to crises and mitigating disasters, primarily if implemented well. Most organizations fail to accurately plan for disruptions that lead to shutdowns or employee downsizing. The NextGen Consultancy Group is a financial planning services company plagued with external and internal challenges to continuity. This report uses interview data and questionnaires to indicate that risk analysis, management, planning, and recovery are critical to continuity. The NextGen consultancy should implement them to ensure their operations are sustainable in a crisis.
This work offers strategic ways NextGen can build resilience despite complex inter-related functionality in the office, thus contributing to the field of organizational continuity. Another contribution is the assessment of recovery in medium-sized enterprises with expansive operational space and many employees. It is also vital to ascertain the business’ resilience from perspectives such as culture, human capital, systems and processes, organizational climate, and leadership style. Ultimately, the report determines the strategies it can integrate into daily operations to ensure resilience through an active and robust corporate response.
Processes Affecting Business Continuity
Business continuity differs from resilience despite being used interchangeably in organizational circles. It is a management tool that ensures a company can deliver its products and services consistently, especially after a disruption (Fani & Subriadi, 2019, p. 276). Managing processes and resources after a disaster is vital and hinge on maintaining functionality in daily operations and the network infrastructure. Decision-making on business continuity involves planning, recovery, risk management, analysis, and collaborating with emergency services, thus keeping critical strategic processes working. Furthermore, communication, role assignment, and testing throughout the operation are essential to business continuity planning.
Risk Management and Analysis
An impact analysis of how disruptions might affect the business process is a critical part of decision-making on business continuity. Risks, such as strategic, operative, and financial, can be expected or unexpected. Contextualizing a business’s risks in its current industry will help prepare the managers and employees for future disruptions (Hassel & Cedergren, 2021. p. 2). Therefore, prevention measures should focus on recognizing potential risks and implementing strategies beforehand to anticipate damage. Consulting from mentors and advisors is vital, in addition to learning from other organizations’ experiences. A further step is utilizing the risk prevention strategy with occasional revisions to reflect current market conditions.
Planning and Recovery Procedures
Entire preparation influences decision-making on continuity since it is the foundation of good choices when a crisis strikes. Strategic processes such as recording daily business activities, taking note of critical equipment used to produce products and services, and investing in retaining knowledgeable employee aid in recovery (Sawalha, 2021, p. 363). Furthermore, the stakeholders that support and run the organization must be identified and recorded since their input is critical to restarting business operations. Legal obligations such as employee remuneration, bookkeeping, and occupational safety must also be maintained since laws are the framework of justice and equality. A robust business continuity decision accounts for geographical risks such as weather anomalies and unique tax laws to minimize disruption to the supply of their products and services.
Employees must know how to respond to disruption through effective communication and training exercises. Preparation and planning processes must account for the equipment and procedures and the human capital that manages them (Sawalha, 2021, p. 362). Strengthening each worker’s response involves organizing recovery teams, determining the necessary procedures to resume normalcy, and developing recovery plans that cover the technological portion and holistic organizational framework.
Communication and Integration
The communication process is strategic to management and maintains an acceptable level of performance after a crisis. Communicating the recovery plan to employees is a practical strategic process since it ensures relevant parties have the information required to restart operations (Schmid et al., 2021, p. 6). Significantly, culturally integrating the plan into the company’s plans and procedures using simple language will ease information processing. Since continuity planning is designed for stressful situations, accounting for a heightened and agitated emotional state is vital. Moreover, diversity regarding electronic and hard-copy formats minimizes capital loss and ensuring these copies are accessible off-site further increases the company’s chance of recovery. Some organizations pre-plan the messages to disburse during crises which ease the communication process and strategically places each worker in crucial areas that maintain the supply of products and services.
Testing and Maintenance
Business continuity planning and decision-making hinge on workable plans that can be executed quickly. Testing the staff to a competent level minimizes risk and increases the organization’s chance of survival (Kumar & Prasad, 2020, p. 2-3). Each manager must familiarize the workers with the continuity plan and ensure they can competently execute their duties without supervision. Interactions between working groups are better depicted through live simulations since a manager can utilize non-essential personnel to depict possible emotional responses. Testing and training the continuity plan also aids in updating procedures by eliminating irrelevant tasks and streamlining them in an efficient and dependable format (Kumar & Prasad, 2020, p. 4). Response team members should be established at this stage, and their contact information should be distributed since emergency services are delivered faster when communication is unhindered.
Elaborating Resilience from Different Perspectives
Business resilience is a component of risk mitigation; however, the approach is more dynamic and strategic. It is an organization’s ability to respond to crises, adapt effectively to the new normal, and thrive (Gianiodis et al., 2022, p. 1030). This result means absorbing the disruptions without letting them change critical business operations, thus creating a new working environment that considers all contexts. A resilient company can quickly deal with the shock associated with crises and resume acceptable operation levels. There are different perspectives to assess resilience, including; human capital, leadership style, culture, organizational climate, and the systems or processes that run a company.
Human Capital
A proactive approach to resilience requires human management to maintain a high-performance level after an unexpected disruption. Building organizational and individual resilience is necessary since these factors contribute to the company’s overall success. Human capital management is the harnessing of skills and abilities present in the organization to motivate and influence employee capabilities (Douglas, 2021, p. 2). Alternatively, individual resilience emanates from interpersonal effectiveness, competence and intercultural communication. This skill is developed through training and developing unique competencies in workers that boost and aid performance (Sternad, 2020). Each worker’s psychological and social needs should be accounted for since they directly increase motivation, worker efficiency and autonomy, positive emotions, and, ultimately, organizational resilience.
NextGen Consulting Group has faced external and internal crises that challenge daily business operations and the delivery of services. Regulations from the Central Bank, competition from bankers, and international markets are some disruptions affecting the organization. Therefore, building resilience through human capital management in the company should begin with identifying critical personnel that runs vital processes and offices (Douglas, 2021, p. 3). Noting them down and sharing this information with employees is an additional step that will strengthen the organization’s overall response and reaction. Individual resilience results in organizational resilience; thus, each worker should have a robust in-built response to turbulent and uncertain working conditions.
Culture
Resilient companies have an internal culture policy that constantly improves on what they produce by implementing vital strategies. Digital disruptions, globalization, and expansion are some of the disruptions contemporary organizations face and need to prepare for to ensure adaptability. The first step is establishing a clear direction and achievable goals for the group. There are several models of success depending on the market the company is operating in and its operational size (Fietz et al., 2021, p. 8). However, holding each team member accountable and harnessing their energy toward a common goal determines good performance. Moreover, a culture built on shared ideals means each worker will find it easier to collaborate and engage with fellow employees.
Communication is an aspect of organizational culture that researchers have emphasized over the years. Promoting frequent and transparent communication is essential since it builds trust and eases the flow of ideas (Fietz et al., 2021, p. 11). Innovation and creativity function together and are equally boosted when each worker feels they are operating in an inclusive environment. Culture accounts for and establishes a unique environment that ensures each worker’s voice is heard and respected by managers and team members alike (Fietz et al., 2021, p. 11). Furthermore, culture generates a sense of belonging and flexibility, which impacts employee retention and satisfaction.
Organizational Climate
A company’s climate is the perception of its environment and working processes. The impression a worker or external party is left with defines a company’s climate and is like each human being’s unique personality. Each workplace distills values, processes, and duties in a specific manner to ensure dependable service delivery and product supply to its consumers. They can range from a human-centered one to a goal-oriented climate. Human capital is the primary currency mode in the former, as each employee is considered a vital resource that must be maintained and appreciated (Beninger & Francis, 2022, p. 229). This aspect is achieved through remuneration and reward systems such as compensation for holiday days. The latter holds the company accountable to a set of goals established at the organization’s inception, which function as performance evaluators.
A rule-oriented climate is one where procedures and a traditional method of administration are enforced. The rules control every employee’s behavior and can limit creativity and innovation due to the emotionally restrictive nature of the environment (Obeng et al., 2021, p. 3). Finally, innovation-oriented companies look to boost their workers’ performance, intelligence, and delivery levels.
Leadership Style
Leadership deals with how a manager harnesses resources within an organization to meet the targeted objectives. Productivity and performance are directly impacted by a manager’s leadership style, impacting resilience. Management practices should reflect the complexities of the business, such as competitors, scale, and model, which ultimately result in a unique environment. Several styles, such as transformational, participative, and transactional, create a different company culture (Tziner et al., 2021, p. 4). According to researchers, a participative leader is democratic and includes his employees in decision-making. This approach creates a sense of belonging, improving crisis response time.
Strategies for Continuity and Resilience
Team Empowerment
One of the ways to boost company resilience is by ensuring each team member is equipped with the necessary skills to execute their tasks competently. More businesses are changing their working model from a traditional office setting to remote locations. The NextGen Consultancy Group should provide tools to make their workers perform positively in the new market conditions. Engaging workers in employee training is a step the company has attempted to do by offering Certified Financial Planning courses and Agency Management Training. If their goal is to produce ten more agency managers, empowering their workers will be the difference maker in a competitive financial field.
Empowering workers involves several steps and should be done in stages to maintain business resilience. Building trust with workers by asking for their input is critical, thus creating a positive and supportive environment (van den Berg et al., 2021, p. 1432). Second, managers should deliver feedback on performance reports and levels to ascertain that all areas are operationally sound with no worker lagging. Open purpose-driven communication is the third action step and is vital to the culture and organizational environment therein. Finally, delegating tasks and responsibilities distills the work into manageable portions and ensures each delivery aspect is met. Supporting worker growth opportunities through educational courses and mentoring will help NextGen Consultancy compete with banks to provide financial services to Malaysian residents.
Improving Reporting Techniques
Accurate reporting is the foundation of a quick and dependable response when faced with disruption. Detailed reports confirm where equipment and other resources were utilized in the field, thus enabling continuity. The NextGen Consulting Group should use an analytical process to record, predict, and prevent future disasters. Data in the contemporary age helps identify vulnerabilities and propose possible solutions to the problem. Moreover, NextGen will accurately monitor employee and organization well-being, productivity, and daily changes through detailed reports. Business areas such as supply and delivery should be recorded consistently and filtered through key performance indicators in the organization.
The business reporting process has several implementation action steps, including establishing accuracy, collating data from different systems, collaboration, and data interpretation. NextGen Consultancy managers should verify that the performance reports are accurate since updated reports impact the speed of service delivery. Additionally, corporate reports summarize operational and functional data, which require unification to present a coherent analysis (Wissem & Slimene, 2021, p. 6). Combining and converting multiple reports from differing departments is the third step of the process, which requires collaboration from all workers. Data interpretation and visualization are the final steps that will clearly show the impact of the systems and process NextGen utilizes (Wissem & Slimene, 2021, p. 7). Nonetheless, self-reporting is an integral culture to integrate into the company since it fast-tracks reporting techniques.
Automate Daily Processes
The recent pandemic changed the working model of most organizations by ensuring their services were automated. NextGen Consultancy should digitize and automate its processes, thus saving them from operational risk by saving their work on an off-site data center. Furthermore, automating their activities will reduce strategic costs and maintain high service delivery rates using robotics and machine learning (Sobczak, 2022, p. 1333). There are repetitive jobs that are rule-based, which can be automated easily to produce the same results through a cheaper framework. Intelligent automation includes natural language processing to determine sentiment, chatbots to receive customer feedback, and robotic processes that boost resilience.
Success business automation can be conducted in five implementation steps, freeing the workforce to address other challenges. First, organizational goals should be re-assessed, and managers must determine if automation compromises or contributes to them (Sobczak, 2022, p. 1333). NextGen Consultancy leaders should also identify opportunities for automation by employing experts knowledgeable on business processes and IT. Tasks with a predictable frequency should be automated, followed by a cost-benefit analysis. If the automation process costs more, the entire strategy is abandoned in favor of a new one. Finally, team preparation and performance tracking are the other action steps in executing the strategy.
Constant Communication
Communication is vital to business resilience and helpful in all organizations, from small enterprises to large employee capacities. Maintaining consistent and clear communication channels in NextGen Consultancy will help the managers and employees to adapt when faced with a disruption (Kim, 2021, p. 591). Crises demand focused direction and guidance to maintain control over the resources pertinent to company performance and delivery. Open and transparent communication between the workers and the management team ultimately improves business resilience since each employee knows their responsibilities and what to do in a challenging scenario.
Planning for accurate communication involves creating steps that address effective internal sharing based on company values. Identifying the purpose and goal of the communication is vital to the consulting company. Additionally, understanding their workers, whom the managers have identified as not outspoken, is crucial to developing a communication strategy (Kim, 2021, p. 592). Workers in NextGen Consultancy keep the adverse outcomes and only share the positive, which requires re-orienting their mindset to see the importance of addressing internal limitations. Creating a strategy that works follows this step, and ultimately, it is tested and trained according to the new environment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, business continuity relates to resuming acceptable work levels after a disruption. In comparison, resilience accounts for a business’s adaptability and willingness to work in a new environment. The NextGen Consulting Group faces external challenges to its continuity from the Malaysian Central Bank, and internally, the culture needs to be built on effective communication. The strategies the business needs to incorporate to compete resiliently in the financial world include team empowerment, improved reporting techniques, task automation, and efficient communication.
Under empowerment, the action steps converge on building trust, delivering open and honest feedback, and supporting employee growth by offering self-improvement courses. Improving the reporting methods for resilience includes data collection, checking for accuracy, combining reports from varying departments, and creating an engaging data visualization technique. Automation requires managers to determine which repetitive tasks can be done digitally with an effective cost-benefit ratio. Finally, communication involves action steps such as identifying the purpose of information sharing and understanding cultural context is next, followed by a tested and tried communication method. These strategies will help NextGen consultancy compete locally and internationally with customers who prefer Singaporean financial advisors.
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