One of the challenges of becoming a resilient organization is understanding exactly what that means. Even the scope of “resilience” varies from one leadership team to another: to some, it means everything and to others it means nothing. At some organizations, it’s the wrapper that brings together all risk management functions, and for others, it’s a theoretical or academic term – even just a buzzword – that doesn’t translate well. Resilience is interpreted and implemented in many different ways and today’s global business environment likely won’t change that anytime soon.

Recently, Control Risks’ 2020 Global Resilience Survey results confirmed these findings: “resilience” still does not have one common definition, nor is there consensus on how, or even whether, it should be used. Thirty percent of respondents said that their organizations do not use the term “resilience”. Of those that do use the term, 65% of businesses describe resilience as “a proactive function detecting risk and disruption early” and use this information to make critical decisions followed by actions; 26% of businesses apply it as a “reactive function for responding to disruptions and incidents.”