Post COVID-19 Divestments – An Increasing Need for Resilience

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Without a shadow of a doubt the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on humanity and our way of living, and this has required considerable change in how businesses operate and plan for such events. We are witnessing a financial crisis and this is creating ongoing uncertainty in the global economy. The impact is widespread and is felt by financial institutions to sole traders; businesses of all sizes are having to rethink the way they operate, and focus on core business activities.

An impending market downturn has prompted a refocus on capital, liquidity and risk. As with any such economic change and further unpredictability,  there are difficult decisions and strategic actions needed to keep businesses afloat. These decisions include accelerating planned (or unplanned) business divestitures to meet liquidity requirements and release capital.

Efficient and seamless divestments are becoming strategically important to organisations during the current crisis, and as part of the divestiture process, preparation and diligence is key to a successful outcome.

Demonstrating a strong capability on operational resilience maturity, skills and ability to withstand and recover from an outage can make a significant impact to a valuation factor of a business. Thus, supporting a buyer’s due diligence by providing assurance of embedded operational resilience is now a significant need. 

Another key factor for an advanced resilience capability is being able to demonstrate the response to a crisis with automation, analytics and machine learning.  IBM and the Ponemon Institute found that advanced security technologies can help businesses quantify risks, reducing the impact and costs associated with a breach. Conversely, those organisations that do not have such technologies in place and do not prepare for breaches, suffer the most.

To address this challenge, we have developed a unique offering to help our clients assess their operational resilience maturity and build a strategy using a common framework that can provide confidence to a potential buyer.

The IBM Operational Resilience Framework brings together a full breadth of IBM skills, expertise and offerings from within our enterprise which includes business and technology consulting, systems integration, outsourcing, infrastructure, cloud, storage, cybersecurity consulting and managed services. We are working with a range of clients to help strategise, coordinate and strengthen operational resilience activities.

Even if a business is not looking to divest, acquire or merge, both cyber risks and regulatory pressures are becoming more focused and maintaining operational resilience beyond the current pandemic is a topic that will remain a key focus for 2020 and beyond.

You can find out more about how IBM can help develop resilience into the DNA of your business.