The 6th Australian and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference will be held this month over 22 – 23 May at The Star Gold Coast (previously Jupiter’s), Queensland.

Mrs Lisa Cameron de Vries, Technical Director at Phoenix Resilience, joins us to discuss ‘The key to resilience is awareness, but how do we become aware?’

Every day in the news we see and read the tragic stories of organisations affected by adversity, like large scale layoffs, deadly accidents, fires, service disruptions or industries being crushed by competition and technological substitutes.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in Australia the national average survival rate of businesses has dropped from 86.9% in June 2012 to 61.9% in June 2015. That is a shocking drop of 25% in only three years.

Global dynamics play a big role in this, like rapid technological developments, international competition, environmental factors and political/economic instability. Additionally, organisations are dealing with national, local and internal factors that all influence the operation and performance of the organisation.

But where there are threats there is opportunity and there are plentiful examples of organisations that identified possibilities and seized them to their full potential.

Initiatives to reduce/minimise adverse impacts and optimise on opportunities can be collated under the header Organisational Resilience.  The key to achieving organisational resilience is awareness, but how do we become aware?

For more information on the 2017 Australian & New Zealand Disaster & Emergency Management Conference and to secure your spot, visit www.anzdmc.com.au.