Cross-functional stakeholder involvement and collaboration
Digital resilience is strengthened through the collective engagement of all stakeholders within and beyond the organization. Educating the internal workforce on digital resilience and embedding it into operations through cross-functional collaboration is crucial. Extending this collaborative approach to external partners by aligning on cybersecurity and other relevant standards across the supply chain further strengthens resilience.
Such cross-functional collaboration should cover several key areas to effectively boost digital resilience.
1. Assess vulnerabilities in legacy systems
Functional teams, such as human resources, finance, sales and marketing, procurement, and operations, use their own systems and tools for daily work. These tools, especially those with long lifecycles (such as operational technology systems), are generally more susceptible to vulnerabilities. Functional teams need to continuously assess outdated legacy systems to prioritize patching so that they remain secure and resilient to attacks or disruptions.
2. Innovate securely
Teams should maintain their innovation mindset. The need to address cyber and digital risks should not be seen as a hindrance to innovation; otherwise, the business would potentially lose its competitive advantage or even risk obsolescence. A balancing act must happen. To innovate securely, teams need to embed resilience considerations into the innovation lifecycle by involving cybersecurity and other teams from the outset in new projects. Adopting a security-by-design approach in product design and development allows innovation without compromising digital resilience.
3. Leverage artificial intelligence (AI) solutions
Leverage machine learning and other AI solutions to detect and respond to threats in real time while driving innovation in areas like data analytics and customer experience. Such technologies serve the dual purpose of supporting innovation and helping to address cyber and digital risks.
4. Develop incident response and crisis management plans
Develop and maintain incident response and crisis management plans to enhance preparedness in handling disruptions effectively. Such plans must consider all risk aspects of the business, including the impact on shareholders, the media, customers, employees and vendors. Communication is key in such incidents and can sometimes be the make-or-break factor for a company in crisis. Successful communication is essential to maintaining the trust built with customers over the years. An effective crisis communications plan promotes transparency, timely updates and clear messaging, which are crucial for preserving customer trust during and after a crisis.
5. Conduct simulation exercises
Conduct simulations of real-world scenarios to prepare for potential disruptions. For functional team leaders, tabletop exercises serve to simulate disruptions and solicit response actions in the event of an incident. The main goal is to foster consensus in action plans across teams. In contrast, cyber range exercises meant only for operations teams allow them to practice and test their responses to cyber threats or disruptions in a controlled environment. These exercises help build response capabilities and confidence in the operations team, which would directly respond to the attack or incident and employ mitigation measures to remediate it.
By building digital resilience in collaboration with other stakeholders, the board and C-suite play a pivotal role in fostering trust in the organization’s ability to prevent and recover rapidly from disruptions in the dynamic digital landscape. Given that it’s only a question of when these would occur in today’s highly interconnected environment, companies that strike the right balance between innovation and effective risk management would be better positioned to maintain long-term competitiveness.
