Understanding operational resilience in ORM: how to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions

What does "operational resilience" refer to in ORM practices?

• A. The ability to forecast potential financial losses
• B. The capability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions
• C. Efforts solely focused on minimizing operational costs
• D. The process of assessing and mitigating all risks

Answer: (B)

Operational resilience refers to an organization's capability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions, ensuring continuity of operations in the face of various challenges. This encompasses a holistic approach, taking into consideration not only the immediate response to a disruption but also the ability to maintain critical functions and recover effectively over time. The emphasis on preparation involves identifying potential disruptions, whether they are due to internal factors like system failures or external influences such as natural disasters or cyber-attacks. The response aspect highlights the need for effective strategies and procedures that can be implemented in times of crisis, minimizing downtime and operational impact. Finally, recovery involves restoring operations to a normal state while learning from the incident to enhance future resilience. While forecasting financial losses and minimizing operational costs are important elements of risk management, they do not encompass the complete concept of operational resilience, which focuses on maintaining service delivery despite adverse conditions. Similarly, assessing and mitigating all risks is part of broader risk management but does not specifically address the operational resilience framework.

Operational resilience in ORM: what it really means

If you poke around in the world of risk, you’ll hear a lot about “surviving the curveballs.” That phrase isn’t just a feel-good line. Operational resilience is the real, practical ability of an organization to stay going when trouble hits. It’s not only about avoiding bad things; it’s about being ready for them, reacting quickly, and bouncing back so operations keep flowing. Think of it as the overlap between crisis response and long-term recovery, with a daily discipline that keeps the lights on even when the weather is throwing shade.

What operational resilience actually refers to

Here’s the simple, accurate definition you can carry into meetings: operational resilience is the capability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions. It isn’t a single tool or a single department’s job. It’s a holistic stance that keeps essential functions humming under stress and over time. It looks beyond a single incident and asks, “What happens next? How do we learn so this doesn’t happen the same way again?”

For a lot of teams, it’s tempting to equate resilience with cost savings or just checking compliance boxes. Those are important, sure, but they don’t capture the whole picture. Operational resilience is about service continuity — delivering what customers rely on, even when the odds aren’t in your favor. It’s a rhythm you build into planning, not a one-off sprint when something goes wrong.

The triad: prepare, respond, recover

Let’s break down the three core capabilities. They’re not separate silos; they’re a connected cycle.

1. Preparation: spotting disruptions before they bite

• Identify the leading threats: cyber intrusions, supplier hiccups, critical system outages, natural disasters, or even a sudden spike in demand that your capacity can’t handle. The goal isn’t to predict every possible event, but to map plausible disruptions that would hurt core operations.

• Analyze impact: what is most vital to keep running? What functions would crumble first if a disruption hit? This is where business impact analysis comes in, helping you prioritize recovery and resource allocation.

• Allocate resources: you’re not just stocking a backup server. You’re ensuring people know what to do, where to go, and how to communicate. You build playbooks, pre-arranged contracts with recovery providers, and resilient processes into day-to-day operations.

• Train and test: people need to know their roles when chaos arrives. Regular tabletop exercises and simulations help teams practice decision-making under pressure. It’s like rehearsing a fire drill, but for operating during a cyber breach or a multistate outage.

2. Response: acting quickly and decisively

• Activate crisis governance: you’ve already planned who makes calls and how information moves. In a disruption, speed matters. People should know who approves temporary workarounds, who communicates with customers, and how to coordinate with partners.

• Maintain critical functions: some operations must continue no matter what. The response phase is about protecting those functions, even if other parts of the business slow down.

• Communicate clearly: stakeholders, customers, suppliers, regulators — everyone deserves accurate, timely updates. A steady flow of information reduces confusion and preserves trust.

• Contain and stabilize: early containment buys valuable time for recovery. It’s not glamorous, but it’s essential.

3. Recovery: returning to normal and learning

• Restore normal operations: bring services back up to standard, validate performance, and verify security protections. The goal isn’t just to “get back” but to get back better.

• Learn from the incident: after-action reviews aren’t about blame; they’re about improvement. What failed, what worked, and what needs to change in plans, tools, or governance?

• Improve the system: update response playbooks, adjust capacities, refine supplier arrangements, and address any systemic gaps revealed by the disruption.

A few practical examples to ground the idea

• A cyberattack hits a core application. Preparation pays off when authentication processes and backup systems enable a rapid switch to a clean environment, even as the team fights the breach. Response requires a calm incident commander, clear internal and external communications, and a rollback plan for affected services. Recovery means restoring the original system with patches, and then refining security controls to prevent a repeat.

• A weather event disrupts a key data center. Preparation includes redundant sites and diversified power sources. When the storm hits, the team switches workloads to the backup site and maintains critical operations with minimal downtime. Recovery involves testing failover again, updating business continuity plans, and negotiating with suppliers for faster recovery of dependent services.

• A supplier failures interrupts a critical supply chain. Preparation means diversifying suppliers and keeping inventory buffers for high-priority items. During disruption, you reroute orders and communicate with customers about delays. Afterward, you reassess supplier risk and adjust contracts or contingency arrangements.

Why resilience stands apart from other risk themes

Forecasting losses or cutting costs are common motivations in risk work, but resilience lives in a different space. It’s not about predicting every number in a financial model; it's about preserving service delivery when the unexpected happens. It’s also not a blanket risk survey; it’s a structured, actionable approach to keep essential capabilities intact. And while risk governance often emphasizes identifying and mitigating a broad spectrum of risks, resilience zooms in on maintaining the ability to operate even when some of those risks crystallize.

Frameworks and tools you’ll encounter

You’ll see resilience tied to several standards and practices. Here are a few names you’ll hear, and what they tend to offer:

• ISO 22316 (Organizational Resilience): a systematic way to build resilience into an organization’s culture and operations. It helps connect strategy, governance, and everyday activities so resilience isn’t “over there” in a separate program.

• Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR): these plans map out how to keep or quickly restore critical services after a disruption, including technical and non-technical steps, communication, and testing cycles.

• NIST guidelines and risk management frameworks: these give structured approaches to risk identification, assessment, and response. They’re practical for integrating resilience into IT and enterprise risk management.

• RTOs and RPOs (recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives): targets that help teams decide how quickly to recover and how much data loss is acceptable, guiding architecture choices and testing.

A culture that supports resilience

Resilience isn’t a one-off project; it’s a cultural habit. Leadership signaling matters. When leaders treat disruption as a normal possibility and talk openly about how to respond, teams lift their game. Regular drills, open post-incident reviews, and a safe space for candid feedback help build that culture. It’s not about fear; it’s about readiness, confidence, and a shared sense that the organization can survive and thrive through rough patches.

Common missteps to avoid

• Treating resilience as a single department’s job. It works best when risk, security, IT, operations, and lines of business all share ownership.

• Skipping tests or drills. Plans that sit on a shelf aren’t resilience; they’re fiction waiting to fail when chaos arrives.

• Narrow focus on one domain. Disruptions almost never stay within one silo. A truly resilient organization connects IT, supply chain, facilities, and customer communications.

• Underestimating third-party risk. Vendors, partners, and contractors can be the weak link or the strength in a disruption. Include them in your planning and testing.

• Forgetting to learn. If you don’t pivot based on incidents, you miss the chance to harden defenses and improve response.

A quick-start blueprint you can carry into work

• Map critical functions: list what must stay on during a disruption and what can be temporarily redesigned.

• Identify disruption scenarios: pick a handful of plausible events (cyber, power, supplier fail, weather) and sketch a basic response.

• Create lightweight playbooks: short guides with roles, decision rights, and first steps.

• Set clear recovery targets: define RTOs and RPOs for the most important services.

• Run tabletop exercises: bring the core team together for a structured, time-limited drill.

• Review and revise: after any disruption or drill, capture learnings and update plans.

A few lines to keep in your notes

Here’s the thing: resilience is diagnostic and adaptive at once. It identifies what matters most and, with discipline, makes that core capability stronger over time. It isn’t glamorous, but it’s profoundly practical. It helps teams stay calm, keep customers informed, and protect the trust that sits at the heart of any business.

Where you’ll see this in real life

If you’re in risk management or operations, you’ll notice resilience woven through decisions about data backups, supplier diversification, cybersecurity readiness, incident communication, and recovery testing. It’s not about chasing the impossible zero-risk world; it’s about designing a system that keeps delivering even when the weather is rough. It’s a daily habit that grows more valuable the more you practice it.

Putting it all together

Operational resilience isn’t a buzzword; it’s a sturdy, living approach to keeping the wheels turning when stress spikes. It’s about preparing for what could disrupt, responding with clarity and speed, and recovering with an eye on betterment. It blends strategy with hands-on practice, governance with real-world action, and the quiet work of building trust with customers, teams, and partners.

If you’re just starting to think about resilience in ORM, start with the triad: preparation, response, recovery. Give yourself a simple map, a handful of ready-to-use playbooks, and a cadence for testing and learning. You’ll likely find that the more you invest in these three areas, the more you’ll see not only fewer interruptions but also a sharper, more confident organization ready to face whatever comes next.

And yes, in the end, that’s exactly what resilience is all about: being ready, acting well, and coming back stronger—not by luck, but by design.