Business leaders' confidence rises in resilience of their organisations despite pandemic: BSI

London [UK], March 15 : Despite the challenges of 2020, business leaders' confidence in the resilience of their organisations has risen, according to the British Standards Institution's (BSI's) fourth annual organisational resilience index report released on Monday.
The report surveyed 500 senior leaders across the globe and found that leaders remain cautiously optimistic with more than half (57 per cent) of businesses in the United Kingdom, the United States and India expecting their financial performance to improve this year.
The concept of organisational resilience refers to an organisation's ability to anticipate, prepare for and adapt to both incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and thrive -- capabilities that have been put to the test in the past year.
As a whole, perceived organisational resilience across organisations globally rose in 2020 with a third of firms (33 per cent) fully confident in the resilience of their organisations -- five per cent more than in 2019.
Encouragingly, many of the organisations interviewed felt that the measures they had in place prior to the pandemic were successful and helped them survive, stabilise and begin to rebuild, boosting their confidence for the future.
While 2020 was a difficult year for most, many organisations emerged more confident from the test of the pandemic. Within the study, there is a clear association between those reporting a stronger financial performance and those with stronger perceptions of their own organisational resilience.
"It is encouraging to see cautious optimism about the future as business leaders focus on building back better and organisations clearly recognise the value of prioritising the health, safety and well-being of employees, clients and communities," said BSI Chief Executive Susan Taylor Martin.
India's perceived organisational resilience fell slightly from 8.3 to 7.9 in 2020 because of businesses' inability to adapt to change and the sudden disruption caused by the pandemic. Nearly half of the respondents (46 per cent) reported worse business performance in 2020 compared to 2019.
However, 64 per cent of leaders are optimistic of a better performing year in 2021 with just 9 per cent expecting a worse one. The environment continues to be a priority within Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) with more than 50 per cent of the organisations focusing on it as a part of their corporate responsibility.
BSI is the business standards company working with 84,000 clients across 195 countries. It has skills and experience across all sectors including automotive, aerospace, built environment, food and retail and healthcare.