OnSolve Report Highlights Concerning Trends Impacting Organizational Resilience

CEOs have a lot to consider when making business decisions. It is challenging to balance customer needs with board and investor demands and maintain an edge over competitors to deliver innovative products and services. Increasingly, though, CEOs need to factor in a wide array of events and influences that—at first glance—appear completely unrelated to the business yet have a significant impact on business operation and organizational resilience.

The Covid Pandemic gave businesses around the world a crash course in the butterfly effect and its ability to disrupt supply chains and grind business to a halt. A catastrophe or severe weather event on the other side of the world can have a cascade effect that results in empty store shelves or empty lots at car dealerships.

We are still actively dealing with Covid, but as businesses begin to pivot to a post-pandemic world, there are a variety of trends and issues that can jeopardize them. A new report from OnSolve, “CEO Brief: Global Risk Impact Report,” reveals the top threats organizations face and shares insight on why CEOs need to be more proactive in understanding the broader risk landscape to make effective business decisions.

Global Risk Impact Report

OnSolve provides organizations with critical event management information that enables them to proactively mitigate physical threats and remain agile when a crisis strikes. No company can avoid catastrophes or disruptions entirely, but awareness of what is on the horizon and its potential impact can allow organizations to make decisions that avoid or minimize the consequences of the event.

The CEO Brief: Global Risk Impact Report was developed from an analysis of all events detected by OnSolve between January 1, 2020 and July 1, 2022 that had the potential to impact customers. The data was gathered using OnSolve Risk Intelligence, an AI-powered platform that monitors over 50 risk categories of physical threats across nearly 160 countries in real-time. There were more than 14 million global events, or physical threats detected by OnSolve during the timeframe analyzed.

Many CEOs are very focused on their own business and their competitors—as they should be. However, it is also crucial to understand the potential domino effect of social issues, climate change, civil unrest, shootings and crime, medical epidemics or pandemics, geopolitical tension, and more—and how it can affect or disrupt business.

Some of the key findings from the OnSolve report include:

● A massive increase in shootings and crime. Reported shootings increased by 250% from 2020 to 2021, while the number of reported mass shootings spiked by 217%. Overall, there have been over 65,000 crime incidents reported in the first half of 2022 in the U.S. alone.

● Climate change can cripple businesses. Extreme weather and natural disaster events were up 47% in 2021. Every category of extreme weather or natural disaster, including blizzards, tornados, and wildfires significantly increased year-over-year. Global floods are becoming a bigger threat year over year in areas where floodings didn’t traditionally occur, such as in Brazil (+400%), Germany (+500%), and Belgium (+420%).

● Global infrastructure is weakening. Transportation accidents surged dramatically, with continued supply chain disruption likely. Transportation accidents increased by more than 100% from 2020 to 2021. The analysis includes road (+168%), railway (+91%), aircraft (+52%), and maritime (+30%) accidents, which all rose in frequency year over year.

● Protests and civil unrest are on the rise, threatening business operations. Protests skyrocketed in 2020 and still slightly increased from 2020 to 2021 (+4%). Organizations must brace for rising civil unrest as polarizing events continue to occur across the United States.

Be Prepared

“We are operating in a world where crises happen every day and most CEOs aren’t looking past the pandemic to realize the biggest threats to their companies,” said Mark Herrington, CEO at OnSolve in a press release for the report. “Managing risk has become more challenging as physical threats have a ripple effect throughout an organization. Business leaders must be prepared to face emerging threats such as extreme weather, crime, civil unrest, and shootings, that can halt business operations and disrupt the broader supply chain and global economy with unparalleled intensity.”

Have you considered how these factors and events can interrupt the flow of materials or information you need to conduct business? Do you have a plan for how to maintain normal business operations in the wake of an earthquake, hurricane, flood, or other natural disasters? You should.

Everyone is familiar with the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared.” Proper planning, training, and preparation, combined with proactive intelligence enable companies to be prepared—and to take action when necessary.