You Benchmark Your Organization's Risks. But Have You Benchmarked Your Resilience Program?

2027 is approaching. Are you building your resilience roadmap with meaningful data, or relying on assumptions?

Imagine walking into your next executive briefing and hearing a question that seems simple enough: "How does our resilience program compare to other organizations like ours?"

Could you answer confidently? I'm not referring to how your program compares to ISO standards, regulatory requirements, or industry best practices. Those are important measures, but I'm talking about something different. How does your program compare to organizations in your industry, of similar size, with comparable operational complexity and resilience responsibilities? Are they investing more in staffing and technology? How frequently are they conducting exercises and audits? How engaged are their executives? And perhaps most importantly, how mature are their programs compared to yours?

If you're struggling to answer those questions, you're certainly not alone. But here's my challenge as we approach 2027: Why wait for your executives to ask these questions before you start looking for the answers?

Resilience professionals spend their careers helping organizations anticipate disruptions, identify vulnerabilities, and prepare for the unexpected. Yet when planning the future of their own programs, many still rely on internal assessments, historical budgets, and assumptions about what other organizations are doing. Perhaps it's time to bring a different perspective into your 2027 planning initiatives.

Your Executives Want Context, Not Just Progress Reports

Think about the information you typically share during an executive briefing. Perhaps you report on completed Business Impact Assessments, updated recovery plans, exercise results, audit findings, training participation, or progress against annual objectives. All of that information is valuable because it demonstrates activity, accountability, and progress. But does it tell your executives whether the organization is investing appropriately in resilience? Does it establish whether your program's governance, staffing, capabilities, and maturity are comparable to organizations facing similar business risks?

An executive may appreciate knowing that you've completed 90% of your planned BIAs. But imagine being able to explain how your BIA review practices compare to similar organizations, whether your executive approval processes align with peers, and what opportunities exist to strengthen oversight. The first demonstrates that you're managing a program, while the second demonstrates that you're thinking strategically about its future.

And if you're looking to increase funding, add headcount, improve executive involvement, or expand resilience capabilities, that distinction matters. Executives are accustomed to making decisions based on market intelligence, financial comparisons, performance indicators, and external benchmarks. Why shouldn't resilience program discussions benefit from that same level of insight?

The Data Is Already Telling Us Something About 2027

Our recently published 15th Edition Global Resilience Management Trends Report provides insights into how organizations are managing and advancing their resilience capabilities. For example, our 2026 research found that:

• 29% of organizations expect to hire additional dedicated resilience personnel in the coming year, nearly double the historical average of approximately 15%.

• 28% anticipate increased investment in full-time resilience staffing, while 25% expect increased investment in resilience technology.

• 73% of program sponsors are positioned directly on, or within one level of, the Executive Committee.

• 96% of mature programs conduct resilience exercises, compared with 46% of immature programs.

• 82% of mature programs review BIAs annually, compared with 39% of immature programs.

These findings are interesting on their own, but their greatest value comes from the questions they raise. If other organizations are expanding resilience staffing, how does your staffing model compare? Does your program have the executive visibility needed to influence decisions? If mature programs are exercising more frequently and validating their capabilities, are your own strategies keeping pace?

Here's where I would challenge resilience leaders to think differently. The global averages are a starting point, but they aren't necessarily the right benchmarks for YOUR organization. A global financial institution with thousands of employees, extensive regulatory obligations, and operations across multiple continents should not necessarily evaluate its program against the same benchmarks as a regional organization with a smaller operational footprint.

Even organizations in the same industry may have very different resilience responsibilities, technology dependencies, governance structures, and resource requirements. That's why understanding how your program compares to relevant peer organizations can be far more useful than simply knowing the global average.

Please Stop Waiting Until Your Program Is Mature to Benchmark It!

One of the most frustrating things I hear from organizations is some variation of this statement: "We're not ready for a benchmarking assessment yet. We want to get our program to a more mature state first."

My response is always the same: Isn't that precisely WHY you should be benchmarking your program now?

Think about it. If you're still developing governance, establishing your exercise strategy, expanding program scope, or trying to secure resources, wouldn't it be helpful to understand what comparable organizations are doing before making those decisions? Why spend the next two years building a program based on assumptions when peer data could help determine where to focus your efforts?

Benchmarking shouldn't be viewed as a reward for reaching maturity. It's a valuable tool for helping you get there. An organization in the early stages of development can use benchmarking to establish a baseline, identify foundational priorities, understand common staffing and governance models, and avoid investing resources in the wrong areas. An evolving program can use the same information to validate progress, identify gaps, strengthen executive engagement, and prioritize its next phase of development.

Even the most mature programs benefit from understanding where their peers are advancing, whether through technology enablement, cross-functional exercises, third-party resilience, or more sophisticated executive reporting. You don't need a perfect program to benefit from benchmarking. You need an accurate understanding of where you are today and a thoughtful strategy for where you want to go.

Waiting until your program is mature may mean missing opportunities to make better decisions along the way.

Standards Tell You What Good Practice Looks Like. Peers Tell You How Organizations Are Actually Operating.

There are excellent consulting firms and service providers that assess resilience programs against recognized standards, regulatory requirements, and established best practices. Those assessments serve an important purpose, and I'm certainly not suggesting organizations abandon them. However, a standards-based assessment and a customized peer benchmarking assessment answer different questions.

A standards-based assessment may identify whether you've established appropriate governance, documented recovery strategies, implemented exercises, and developed the processes expected of an effective resilience program. A peer-based assessment adds another dimension: How are organizations like yours actually structuring, funding, managing, and advancing those capabilities?

Consider staffing. An assessment might identify that your program needs additional resources. But what if you could also demonstrate that comparable organizations maintain larger dedicated resilience teams or allocate more of their budgets to technology, exercises, and professional development? Conversely, perhaps your program is already well-resourced compared to peers. That's equally valuable because it may suggest your next improvement should focus on effectiveness rather than additional spending.

The objective isn't to copy other organizations or assume every difference represents a weakness. It's to understand whether those differences are intentional, justified by your organization's risk profile, or worth investigating. Customized peer benchmarking adds this context by examining organizations with relevant characteristics such as industry, employee population, revenue, geographic footprint, and other available criteria.

At Resilience360 Advisory, our research also provides study participants with a resilience program maturity score, creating another reference point for understanding capabilities and tracking progress over time. Together, peer comparison and maturity insight can help transform an assessment from a compliance-oriented exercise into a strategic planning resource.

What Could Customized Benchmarking Reveal About Your Program?

Let me share an example of why this matters. In one of our resilience program benchmarking engagements, a globally operating organization had already established a comprehensive resilience program. The organization had many foundational capabilities in place, and leadership was supportive. What it lacked was a clear understanding of how its program compared to relevant peers.

Our assessment produced a program maturity score of 146, compared with an industry average of 112 and a peer-group average of 132. The comparison confirmed that the organization was performing well above its comparison groups, but it also highlighted something important: Even a program outperforming its peers had meaningful opportunities to improve.

The analysis identified opportunities to strengthen third-party exercise coordination, formalize executive governance, increase independent external audits, expand technology enablement, and review staffing and investment levels. For example, the organization had six dedicated resilience professionals, while comparable organizations averaged 8.3 personnel across similar disciplines.

That doesn't automatically mean the organization needed to hire additional staff. It does, however, provide a meaningful starting point for evaluating whether resources are sufficient to support the program's responsibilities and future objectives. Rather than approaching executives with a general request for more resources, program leadership could frame discussions around peer comparisons, demonstrated strengths, identified gaps, and specific improvement priorities.

The assessment provided something internal progress reporting alone could not: external context for strategic decision-making. Our sample Resilience Program Benchmarking Report illustrates the types of peer comparisons, maturity insights, and executive-level recommendations that can emerge from this analysis.

The sample report uses illustrative data to demonstrate the reporting approach.

Turn Your Benchmarking Results Into a 2027 Action Plan

As you begin developing your 2027 resilience program roadmap, I would encourage you to think beyond the initiatives already on your calendar. Certainly, you'll need to complete scheduled assessments, exercises, training, audits, and other ongoing responsibilities. But strategic planning should also consider whether your program is positioned to meet the organization's changing needs.

Start by asking yourself a few uncomfortable questions. If your executives asked you to justify your current resilience budget, could you demonstrate how it compares with similar organizations? If you requested additional headcount, could you explain how staffing levels align with peers managing comparable responsibilities? If you want greater executive engagement, do you know how other organizations structure governance and sponsorship?

And if you're proposing new technology, more sophisticated exercises, or expanded third-party resilience initiatives, can you substantiate those priorities with external research? Perhaps the most important question is whether your 2027 goals are based on the capabilities your organization actually needs or simply a continuation of what you've always done.

Benchmarking can help identify where your program is performing well, where gaps may exist, and which initiatives deserve closer consideration. It can also help establish measurable goals. Instead of broadly committing to "improve executive engagement," you might establish a formal resilience steering committee with defined responsibilities and a regular reporting cadence. Rather than simply requesting another employee, you could evaluate staffing against program scope, peer resourcing, and the work required to achieve your roadmap.

Similarly, instead of expanding your exercise calendar without a clear rationale, you might prioritize joint exercises with critical third parties if benchmarking identifies that as an opportunity. The point isn't to create a longer list of activities. It's to build a more defensible roadmap with clear priorities, measurable objectives, and a compelling business rationale.

Wouldn't you rather bring that roadmap to your executives proactively than scramble to develop one after they start asking difficult questions?

Finding the Right Level of Research for Your Program

One thing I've learned through years of resilience research is that organizations don't always need the same level of analysis. Some want broader industry trends to inform planning, while others need detailed peer comparisons to support specific decisions.

For those interested in exploring the data, Resilience360 Advisory offers three levels of research.

1. The 15th Edition Global Resilience Management Trends Report

Our global report provides a comprehensive view of resilience management trends, including organizational structures, executive sponsorship, program maturity, staffing, budgets, assessments, exercises, standards, emerging risks, and other management practices. It's a useful starting point for understanding how the profession is evolving and identifying questions worth exploring within your organization.

2. Participate in Our Resilience Management Study and Receive a Customized Dashboard

Organizations seeking a more personalized perspective can participate in our resilience management study to receive the global report and a customized dashboard. The dashboard allows participants to examine research findings through more relevant comparisons, while completion of the assessment also provides a program maturity score. Learn more about the Global Resilience Management Trends Report and study participation. Also, view a sample customized dashboard.

3. Customized Resilience Program Benchmarking Reports

For organizations needing more detailed analysis, we offer several levels of customized research and benchmarking. Our comprehensive offering includes the global report, customized dashboard, and an organization-specific assessment with selected peer-group comparisons, program maturity analysis, executive insights, and actionable recommendations.

These reports can help support executive briefings, strategic roadmaps, staffing and budget evaluations, governance improvements, and program development priorities. You can view a sample comprehensive benchmarking report or schedule a complimentary exploratory discussion to explore which comparisons would be most meaningful for your organization.

Don't Wait for Your Executives to Ask

As resilience leaders, we're constantly encouraging our organizations to be proactive. We ask business units to identify vulnerabilities before disruptions occur, validate recovery strategies before they're needed, and address risks before they become crises. Shouldn't we apply that same philosophy to how we manage and advance our own resilience programs?

You don't need to wait until your program is mature, your budget is challenged, or an executive asks how your program compares to other organizations. Whether you use internal performance measures, industry research, peer benchmarking, or a combination of these approaches, the important thing is to challenge assumptions and make planning decisions with the best information available.

With 2027 approaching, this is an opportunity to take a fresh look at your program, identify meaningful priorities, and develop a roadmap reflecting both your organization's needs and the changing resilience landscape.

Don't just tell your executives what your resilience program accomplished in 2026. Show them where it stands, where it needs to go, and why your 2027 priorities deserve their attention.

Because the goal isn't simply to have a more mature resilience program. It's to build the capabilities your organization needs, with the resources, executive engagement, and strategic direction to make them effective. And that starts with knowing where you stand.

About Resilience360 Advisory

At Resilience360 Advisory, we combine more than 25 years of specialized resilience industry expertise with over two decades of global research and benchmarking experience to help organizations strengthen their resilience programs and make more informed strategic decisions.

Through our annual Global Resilience Management Trends and Compensation studies, customized peer benchmarking dashboards, and comprehensive research assessments, we help organizations evaluate program maturity, understand staffing and investment practices, identify improvement opportunities, and support meaningful executive discussions.

Our services also include specialized recruiting, strategic staffing, compensation benchmarking, and career coaching for professionals across Business Continuity, Crisis Management, Disaster Recovery, Operational Resilience, and related disciplines.

Explore our Resilience Program Research and Benchmarking Services, or book a complimentary discussion to learn how customized research or strategic staffing can support your organization's 2027 resilience planning initiatives.

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