Protecting the Shareholder – 3 Strategic Questions Every Board Should Ask

In today’s volatile business environment, organizations need to do more than just withstand disruptions; they must also adapt and evolve their business strategies to maintain operational resiliency against macroeconomic, regulatory, and technological challenges. Building resilience as a core competency protects your company, customers, employees, and shareholders.

It is crucial that boards ask forward-looking questions that drive leadership to think critically about their organization’s preparedness, adaptability, and future growth. Here are three vital areas of focus:

1. Are we actively anticipating and preparing for the next major disruption?

   • Do we have a disciplined process to continuously monitor for threats and signals of change requiring that we adjust our strategy accordingly?
   • What are the biggest threats to our organization?
   • What anticipated emerging risks (geopolitical, technological, regulatory, environmental, and societal) could fundamentally impact our business model?
   • How do we ensure our resilience planning remains proactive rather than reactive?

2. How well can we assess our organization’s resilience posture in real time?

   • Do we have a clear, real-time, and aggregate view of our enterprise-wide risk posture, or are we relying on fragmented reports across individual risk domains?
   • Can leadership readily provide the board with a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of our risk landscape and preparedness?
   • Are our decision-making processes informed by a complete picture of financial and operational resilience, rather than isolated or incomplete data points?

3. Are we confident in the resilience of our supply chain and critical operations?

   • How do we validate the integrity and transparency of our supply chain, including third-party and fourth-party dependencies?
   • Do we have alternatives in place on providers that we are solely dependent on?
   • Have we stress-tested our critical business services to ensure they can withstand disruptions?
   • How frequently do we conduct scenario planning and stress testing to assess operational vulnerabilities?

By addressing these questions, boards and C-suite leaders can ensure that resilience is treated as a core business enabler, rather than just a compliance checkbox, fostering a strategic approach to sustainable growth in an increasingly uncertain world.

Remember, the CrowdStrike outage was a resilience issue, as software bugs can happen at any time. This outage affected many companies in many industries. Those that weathered it successfully had resilience plans in place, but those that did not were likely on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Don’t let that be your organization! Now is the time to leverage operational resilience software like Fusion’s to ensure your organization can successfully navigate risks and fulfill its promises.