The Role of Enterprise Risk Management in Business Continuity and Resiliency in the Post-COVID-19 Period

COVID-19 is the first major global pandemic in over 100 years. This is because the likelihood of such a pandemic occurring was extremely low and many of these businesses were reluctant to invest in control measures for such a catastrophic event. This paper investigates the role of enterprise risk management in business continuity and resiliency in the post-COVID-19 period. The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a wake-up call for many organizations around the world, as it has led to the discontinuity of many businesses. Nonetheless, it has also served as a new platform that an organization could use to challenge their operations, especially the role that enterprise risk management plays in business continuity and resilience using the nine Ernst & Young Resiliency Framework. It is also important to have an agile cost base, optimize the supply chain to mitigate risk, increase worker flexibility, and enhance digitalization and automation which are protected by cybersecurity. Technology will play a critical role in ensuring that the organization is resilient if a similar pandemic occurs in the future. It is important to accelerate the adoption of technology while improving the resilience plan of the organization. In the event of a future occurrence, the management has to ensure that a recovery plan is in place with a tool, which will begin by restarting production, ensuring that the customers have access to products and services, reducing the costs, and streamlining structures.