What DRI International’s latest report tells us about the future of operational resilience

DRI International recently released the11th Annual Global Risk and Resilience Trends Report (2025), a landmark document summarizing the results of a global survey and the qualified contributions of the Future Vision Committee.
The report offers an up-to-date-and in some ways very concrete-picture of the key operational, strategic and systemic threats that organizations will face in the short to medium term.

Unlike many purely theoretical analyses, this study reflects the perceptions of those who work daily on business continuity, crisis management, cyber resilience, and operational resilience, and highlights where the real fragilities of organizational systems are concentrated today.

The most immediate operational risks: what generates real discontinuity today

Among the risks that emerge most strongly in the report, some elements now appear to be structural and no longer episodic:

Cyber incidents and IT disruptions
They are perceived as the main driver of operational discontinuity. Not only because of the increasing frequency of attacks, but because of the domino effect these events generate on core processes, essential services, customers and reputation. The line between technological incident and business crisis is now extremely thin.

Financial instability and macroeconomic pressures
The report highlights how inflation, market tensions and financial volatility directly affect supply chain resilience and the ability of organizations to invest in prevention, redundancy and continuous improvement.

Extreme natural and climatic events
They are no longer considered “exceptional events,” but recurring factors with systemic impacts on infrastructure, logistics, energy and resource availability. Climate resilience thus enters fully into the business continuity agenda.

Shortage of skills and resources
An often underestimated issue: even the best frameworks fail if organizations lack trained people, clear roles and the ability to execute under stress. Ultimately, resilience is also (and above all) a matter of human capital.

Long-term strategic trends that are redefining resilience

Alongside the more immediate risks, the report identifies some underlying trends that are changing the very concept of organizational resilience:

  • Growing dependence on complex technologies and third parties, with increased risk of concentration and critical dependencies that are not always fully governed.
  • Ungoverned use of Artificial Intelligence, which introduces new opportunities but also operational, ethical and continuity risks, especially when AI enters decision-making or service delivery processes.
  • Geopolitical instability and loss of trust in institutions, which amplify the impact of crises and make medium- to long-term planning more complex.
  • Pressure on natural and infrastructure resources, particularly energy and critical networks, with direct effects on operational sustainability and incident response capability.

These factors do not act in isolation: their real risk lies in the combination and interdependencies that create complex crisis scenarios that are difficult to manage with traditional approaches.

The key message of the report: from reaction to strategic capability

The central message of the Global Risk and Resilience Trends Report 2025 is clear and unequivocal:
resilience can no longer be only reactive nor confined to the perimeter of Business Continuity Management.

Resilience must become an integrated, uniting strategic capability:

  • Business continuity and crisis management
  • Cyber resilience and ICT incident management
  • Governance of suppliers and critical third parties
  • Risk management and governance at the top management level

This approach requires an end-to-end view in which plans, technologies, people, and processes are consistent and realistically tested.

A particularly timely reminder for the European context

The report’s findings are also particularly relevant in light of new European regulatory requirements, such as DORA and NIS2, which are pushing organizations to demonstrate not only the existence of plans, but real, measurable and verifiable maturity in managing business continuity and resilience.

In this sense, DRI International’s report is not only a snapshot of risk, but also a useful strategic thinking tool for administrators, executives, risk managers and resilience professionals called upon to lead organizations in increasingly unstable and interconnected environments.

Editorial Note

The full report is available through the DRI Library to members and registered users, and provides a valuable baseline to guide BCM, cyber resilience and operational resilience programs in 2025 and beyond.

This post is also available in: Italian