Ahead of the Curve: A whitepaper on operational resilience
Ahead of the Curve: The challenges and opportunities of shifting to proactive operational resilience is an AFR Insights report published by the thought leadership division of The Australian Financial Review. Sponsored by PagerDuty and authored by The Action Exchange.
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Context
Digital platforms, now the backbone of modern economies, face mounting scrutiny as global IT outages expose systemic vulnerabilities across the economy. With disruptions posing billion-dollar risks, operational resilience has shifted from an IT concern to a boardroom imperative. Consumers, shareholders and regulators are increasingly demanding companies take proactive steps to anticipate, mitigate and recover from system failures. The message is clear: outages are no longer rare events, and corporate Australia must brace for the next inevitable disruption.
Approach
The development of this report drew on business intelligence to explore how corporate Australia must adapt to navigate an increasingly volatile operational landscape.
The paper features exclusive interviews with:
• Shilpha Anand, Head of Engineering, Webjet OTA
• Paul Budde, Telecommunications Analyst
• Shashank Kaul, Chief Technology Officer, Webjet OTA
• Ken Saurajen, Intellectual Property and Technology Partner, Clayton Utz
Outcome
Key findings from the research include:
Rising importance of digital infrastructure: Digital platforms have become indispensable across society with outages creating severe social and economic consequences.
The financial and reputational stakes are high: Outages and cyber attacks can cost millions in lost revenue, fines and reputational damage, with significant impacts on customer trust and investor confidence.
Technological enablers: Artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation are key tools in minimising human error, improving incident detection and enhancing recovery capabilities.
Regulatory developments: Both in Australia and overseas, regulators are driving a more rigorous, enterprise-wide approach to operational risk management. In particular, APRA’s CPS 230 rule, coming into force on 1 July 2025, mandates proactive resilience planning across Australia’s financial sector. The new standards place accountability for operational resilience on company directors.
Third-party risks are no longer someone else’s fault: Companies are being required to demonstrate oversight of their third- and fourth-party service providers’ risk management practices.
A cultural shift in organisations: Forward-thinking companies are using proactive operational resilience to foster a culture of continuous improvement, leveraging incidents as learning opportunities, and enhancing internal collaboration and morale.
