How AI helps build business resilience amid the polycrisis

The ongoing risks caused by the polycrisis—multiple cases of disruption happening simultaneously—are creating a clear impetus for organisations to improve business resilience. According to research by ServiceNow and ThoughtLab, resilience can drive growth and financial performance across a business.
As for how businesses unlock this resilience, the analysis also shows an organisation’s digital maturity directly correlates with how prepared it is for unplanned disruption. In fact, 9 out of 10 organisations classified as ‘risk-ready’ are digital transformation leaders, too.

The takeaway is simple: Manual, outdated processes don’t allow for business resilience; digital processes do. To thrive in times of polycrisis, organisations must turn to technology.

The role of AI in resilience

AI is well-placed to help businesses build up their resilience. It can help increase efficiency and productivity by freeing workers from spending time on tasks that could easily be done by a computer. That means more work can be completed without the need to spend money on additional hires.
AI can also boost employee experience. By allowing employees to focus on value-added tasks that use their full skill set, it cultivates more satisfied staff who are ready and willing to spot and react to unplanned issues.

Finally, AI improves overall visibility across operations. This makes it much easier for business leaders to identify unforeseen issues and flag them to the teams responsible. Those teams can then quickly respond in real time before an issue has a significant negative impact on business performance.

AI-driven resilience in action

Many organisations are already using AI solutions to increase resilience.

Telecom giant Vodafone, for example, used ServiceNow automation technology to integrate data, digitise processes, and equip systems with the right tools – improving productivity by 45% and boosting customer satisfaction in the process.

Now, automated workflows connect teams and functionalities for improved data management, allowing Vodafone to scale without slowing down. This allows the company to stay resilient in the face of an increasingly turbulent environment.

For Manchester Airport Group (MAG), automation played a key role in onboarding new staff to meet post-pandemic demand. Dealing with a high volume of new hires and passengers, MAG needed a way to ensure a streamlined hiring process. Any bottlenecks meant not only a slower recruitment process, but also risked poorly trained staff likely to affect both the customer and employee experiences.

MAG turned to automation to digitise processes where possible. Doing so eliminated time-consuming tasks and reduced human errors that had previously slowed down the onboarding process. As a result, the company cut the time it takes to onboard new employees by an average of 41%.

Starting your AI journey

Organisations looking to survive in the face of the polycrisis must make use of all the supporting technology available to them to boost business resilience. The goal should be to streamline processes, increase visibility, and relieve employees from manual, low-level work—so they can focus on what really matters.

AI allows you to do exactly that, helping you create more robust and resilient operating processes that empower your organisation to survive the ongoing polycrisis and come out of it stronger.

Find out more about how AI can drive business resilience.