SECTOR & STREAM ROUNDUP
BUSINESS RESILIENCE FOR THE NEW NORMAL ALUMNI news spoke to Tim Foster, BDO Partner in Risk Advisory Services, about business resilience and why it’s more crucial than ever as we start the transition back to office life.
WHAT’S BUSINESS RESILIENCE ANDWHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT? Business resilience is your company’s ability to weather and adapt in moments of crisis and other unexpected scenarios. Most people know about financial and legal resilience. Other types of business resilience include your premises, your management, your employees and your customers and suppliers. The pandemic has affected all these areas in one way or another and it has been a testing time for business leaders.
WHAT CHALLENGES TO RESILIENCE HAVE WE SEEN OVER THE PANDEMIC? Over the pandemic there has
To help solve these issues, there needs to be quite a lot of investment, both nationally and by individual companies. UK network providers are busy trying to put in new networks, but this is having an impact on home workers’ ability to get online. In fact, several clients have told me that their staff are pushing to get back into the office as soon as possible because they've had so many technical issues at home. There is another big challenge testing the resilience of the tech sector right now. New tech equipment is difficult to source due to a combination of COVID, Brexit and the Suez Canal obstruction.
The resulting supply chain issues have led to a shortage of semi-conductors and computer chips, which are needed in everything from computers to cars. At the same time, global demand for semi-conductors has dramatically increased as people have needed more devices to work, learn and socialise from home. As a result of this perfect storm, IT companies are struggling to meet their clients’ demands for new devices and programmes. This global shortage of semi-conductors has affected several BDO clients and challenged their business resilience.
definitely been a strain on technology because of the change in ways of working. The technology space has faced some challenges, specifically around people working from home. For many of our clients, employees working from home has been a real test for the use of technology. I think overall we're finding that actually it's worked. However, on the other hand, continued – and increased –home working will test infrastructures further. Although there was a degree of tech resilience in 2020, people are now finding that their kit is starting to feel the strain. We’re all online longer during the day and that's putting pressure on equipment, such as laptops, which normally have quite a good life span.
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