Building Operational Resilience Through Digital Transformation

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations probably felt they had adequate disaster recovery and business continuity plans to withstand large-scale disasters. What they didn’t anticipate was a global shift to remote workers almost overnight, followed by a wave of disruption in the supply chain and a sudden inability to access critical business information. 

As a result, many businesses were forced to close. Yelp data shows 60% of business closures due to the coronavirus pandemic are now permanent.

As we move toward a new reality, business leaders are navigating a whole new work environment. It is clear that traditional approaches to recovery and business continuity management no longer meet the needs of most organizations and those looking to survive.

Many companies are investing in digital technology and transformation to ensure operational resilience. With the right strategy, you can ensure the reliability of your critical assets and build your supply chain operations to withstand any disruption.

Enterprises of all sizes are looking to digital transformation to improve operational resilience. But what is operational resilience, and how can digital change help? In this post, we’ll explore the concept of operational resilience and how digital transformation can help businesses achieve it.

What is operational resilience?

Operational resilience is the ability of an organization to adapt and respond to disruptions in a timely and effective manner. It’s about more than just recovering from a significant incident; it’s about keeping the business running during and after an incident. Many factors contribute to operational resilience, but one of the most important is having a robust and agile IT infrastructure.

This is where digital transformation comes in. By implementing digital transformation initiatives, businesses can improve operational resilience by – automating IT processes and – adopting a more flexible and decentralized IT architecture. These changes can help businesses to adapt more quickly to disruptions, minimize the impact of outages, and improve overall recovery time.

Digital transformation is not a one-time event; it’s a continuous journey. But it’s a journey worth taking for businesses looking to improve operational resilience.

What are the benefits of digital transformation?

There are many benefits of digital transformation, but some of the most common include the following:

Improved operational resilience

As discussed above, one of the most important benefits of digital transformation is improved operational resilience. By automating business processes and adopting a more flexible and decentralized IT architecture, businesses can more quickly adapt to disruptions, minimize the impact of outages, and improve overall recovery time.

Increased efficiency and productivity

Digital transformation can also help businesses to increase efficiency and productivity. By automating repetitive and manual tasks, companies can free employees to focus on more strategic and value-added tasks. In addition, by increasing the use of data and analytics, businesses can gain insights that can help to improve decision-making and optimize business processes.

Improved customer experience

Another common benefit of digital transformation is improved customer experience. By adopting new technologies, businesses can provide customers with a more personalized and engaging experience. In addition, by automating customer service processes, companies can offer faster and more efficient service.

Increased competitive advantage

Finally, digital transformation can also help businesses to gain a competitive advantage. By adopting new technologies and innovative business models, companies can differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Tips to Transition Paper Processes to Digital Workflows

1. Conduct an audit of your space and inventory
2. Digitize your mailroom
3. Implement hybrid scanning and storage
4. Automate workflows
5. Move to a cloud document management system
6. Embrace new partnerships

Conduct an audit of your space and inventory

When you’re ready to take the plunge into digitizing your paper processes, the first step is to get an accurate idea of what you’re starting with. Conducting an inventory of the paper documents in your office will give you a baseline to work from as you move forward with your transition.

Digitize your mailroom

One of the easiest places to start is your mailroom. By digitizing documents and storing incoming mail electronically, you can have a digital mailroom that saves time and resources sorting and distributing physical mail.

Implement hybrid scanning and storage

If you’re not ready to commit to a fully digital document management system, hybrid scanning, and storage can be a good compromise. With scan-on-demand, you can scan and store documents electronically and maintain physical copies for reference or backup.

Automate workflows 

Automating your workflows can save you a significant amount of time and effort. By setting up automated rules and regulations with workflow automation tools, you can eliminate the need for manual data entry and processing.

Move to a cloud-based document management system

One of the advantages of an enterprise content management system is that it offers increased accessibility to files. With digital document storage systems, files can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. This is ideal for businesses with employees who work remotely or travel frequently. In addition, a cloud-based document management system is more scalable than an on-premises solution. This means that it can easily be expanded to accommodate a growing business.

Start building your operational resilience today

82% of employees say their productivity suffers due to poor information management. This makes sense, given the data businesses, employees, and consumers generate in today’s digital ecosystem. That’s why now is the time to partner with external experts specializing in integrated information management to accompany your company on its digital transformation journey.

VRC’s hybrid document and information management solution suite allows you to seamlessly integrate your physical and digital assets into your daily workflows and operations. Our combined approach to information management gives you the tools and technology you need to store, manage and access your documents for complete information lifecycle management.