Recovery, resilience, and reconnection
The world is changing at a pace most of us have never experienced. Businesses that have long relied on predictability have had to rethink their approach to forward planning amidst continuous uncertainty. So what comes next: how can industries move past recovery to build resilience and reconnect with their markets and communities?
Some industries have been able to survive and thrive during a global pandemic and severe disruption to their supply chains and ways of operation. However, other industries really couldn't respond. I think what all industries can do and what they all have in common is the ability to be proactive in planning for disruption, their ability to flexibly respond to disruption that comes their way and to be filled in their organizations and their businesses to respond to change and disruption in the future. HD. We're able to help our clients better understand their customer base, the demographics and trends that the customers now face. We're able to help our clients understand their assets, the assets that they own. They are developing and they currently operate. We're able to help our clients understand their businesses, their invest, ability, profitability and their ability to meet net zero targets. And ultimately we're able to truly integrated propositions and with strategic initiatives around future of water, future energy and future communities. We're able to help them understand innovation and the opportunities that lie ahead. I think businesses are going to have to think long and hard about how they achieve their net zero objectives and not truly pass on every cost to the consumer. That puts pressure on businesses to run their investment and operational expenditure. But it means that consumers, whilst willing to pay for greener, more sustainable choices, there is a limit and that is going to have to put pressure on the businesses to think more proactively about how they generate their revenue and fund their investment to achieve net zero objectives. We've had a period of disruption and instability across the region. Now is the time now more than ever to regroup and re plan for recovery, to build a more resilient economy and industry, and to replan and repurpose a lot of our assets and ways of working that are fit for the future.
The road to resilience
With risk comes opportunity. Having weathered the biggest shake-up to global industries in living memory, businesses now have the chance to rethink every facet of their being. If it’s not quite a blank slate, it’s the closest thing they’ve had – and will have – for some time to come.
At GHD, we want to understand how UK industries have been impacted, where they are on their journey from recovery and resilience to reconnection, and what opportunities lie ahead. Through a combination of desk research, internal GHD expert consultation data, and a survey of over 2,000 consumers and hundreds of business decision makers, we’ve created the disruption index.
It’s a benchmark that sectors can use to monitor disruption over coming years, build confidence in their future readiness, and identify blind spots and opportunities for growth.
To analyse the risk of disruption to sectors, we focused on four key areas that we believe are central to designing a more resilient future:
- Customers – Ensuring consumers are placed at the centre; understand and plan changing behaviours and expectations.
- Business – Evaluating your business model; embedding ESG fully into your operations to remain investable.
- Assets – Analysing and optimising your assets; minimising waste and reducing the risk of obsolescence.
- Innovation – Investing in technology and piloting new solutions; testing how to meet changing consumer demand.
A varied picture for British Industry
Markets and sectors in the UK are vastly different — from public to private and highly regulated to unregulated. To provide a fair analysis, we reviewed and grouped industries and sectors into three areas: Recovery from the aftermath of the pandemic; Working to build future Resilience; Functioning effectively and reconnecting with their markets and customers. Where industries rank in our research defines where we believe them to be on their road to resilience.
Discover the key findings
Research Insights
Customers
- 26% Business decision makers believe changing consumer demands is going to cause the greatest disruption in the next 10 years
- 25% Consumers would look to buy from Net Zero companies, but only 25% would always purchase from a Net Zero company, even if it meant spending more
Business
- 17% Organisations that have committed to achieving net zero have started implementing strategies, and are publishing their performance both internally and externally
- 25% On average, businesses expect to commit almost ¼ of annual revenue to achieve their net zero target
Assets
- 60% of businesses have at least some of their physical assets at risk of obsolescence
- 36% of which are unable to be repurposed.
Innovation
- 25% On average, businesses are dedicating around 25% of their organisation’s budget to digital transformation. However this investment could be lost if businesses don’t take their people on the journey.
- 18% businesses feel their systems and solutions are fully integrated across their whole organisation.
Whatever the sector, it’s our hope that businesses use our research to identify what to prioritise in their own journeys to resilience. Now is the time to move beyond disruption and reconnect – with the market, with communities, and with each other."