Business value can be a nebulous term, understood differently between and even within companies. Its definition depends on the target of the value. According to Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman, shareholders were considered to be the main recipients. Today, however, businesses face pressure to create value for a wider range of stakeholders—employees, customers, the supply chain and the communities in which they operate. This shift expands value beyond what can be measured in purely monetary terms. The growing importance of intangible resources, such as intellectual property and digital assets, has further transformed the concept of business value, pushing it beyond the physical realm of property, machinery and capital goods.

Companies work to protect what they see as intrinsic to their continued operations. Therefore, an essential element to a company’s value strategy is a concurrent approach to resilience—the proactive capacity to absorb stress, recover critical functionality and thrive in altered circumstances. The disruption of normal working practices and supply chains during both the covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have aptly demonstrated the need for business resilience—and the necessity of preparing for the most unexpected of scenarios.