News

15/10/2023 - The Impact of Technology on the Modern Conflict - an Observation for Business

In recent years the concern over the impact of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and more recently Autonomous Aerial Systems (AAS) within the battlespace has required commanders to consider the implications of advanced technology and the character or warfare. Recently UAS systems have demonstrated the ability to project force away from the conventional battlefield, with recent events in Ukraine demonstrating various impacts to naval and air unit capability. In 2022 the writer Joshi published a paper in The Economist proposing the nature of warfare was changing, with UASs on the battlefield now able to create widespread damage and risk to success.

This paper challenges that proposal and takes the position that it is the ability of the military, business sectors, law enforcement agencies and government departments to work together that delivers the ultimate opportunity for success on the battlefield, not just the introduction of advanced technology, such as UAS. Without the correct supporting framework, data management, intelligence exploitation and the human component, the presence of UAS is just one more weapon system on the battlefield with positive and negative potential impact.

Access to the paper is available at this link

30/04/23 - Building Resilience Through Education

Recently SQUARED APPLES entered into a training partnership to deliver the Disaster Recovery Institute (DRI) International  Operational Resilience courses within the United Kingdom and Europe. The UK and Europe wing of DRI International, known as DRI (UK), aims to promote the is  values of resilience through providing education, awareness and thought leadership across the various disciplines within an operational resilience framework. Working together, SQUARED APPLES and the DRI (UK) aim to build a greater level of awareness and professionalism across the resilience sector within the UK and Europe region.

Operational Resilience has recently started to take a firm hold within the UK as the commercial and financial sectors are realising the need to build a holistic capability to managing disruptive events. As the UK aims to build this capability into the very DNA of organisations, there is the need to rapidly invest in staff awareness, knowledge, experience and capability.

This is where the recent partnership between SQUARED APPLES and DRI (UK) can provide an immediate level of support to organisations across the UK and Europe region. Supported by the DRI International foundation in the United States of America, DRI (UK) can provide several Operational Resilience courses that are internationally recognised, with individuals also able to obtain a certified practitioner qualification.

The Operational Resilience framework currently being offered by DRI International consists of the following courses:

• Certified Business Continuity Practitioner
• Certified Cyber Resilience Practitioner
• Advanced Business Continuity Practitioner
• Information Technology Disaster Recovery
• Certified Risk Management Practitioner
• Certified Business Continuity Auditor

These courses provide individuals and organisations the ability to build and/ or enhance their operational capability. The DRI (UK) also promote and support ongoing professional development as an operational resilience practitioner, with their own award process and subsequent development framework. A DRI International certification is the most widely recognized and respected business continuity certification in the world. DRI International only certifies professionals that have demonstrated both knowledge and experience in the business continuity and/or disaster recovery profession. 

For further information on the available course dates, please use the following link DRI (UK) Course Dates.

For further information about DRI International and what it stands for, please use the following link DRI International.

30/06/21 - Building Resilience through leadership

Due to the research conducted by staf within SQUARED APPLES, the team has been invited to join the University of Wolverhampton's Research Policy Unit and assist with inputting into the United Kingdom Resilience Strategy through the recent call for evidence on the impact of the recent pandemic and the implications that it had for the national resilience capability.  By being involved with this work SQUARED APPLES is actively assisting in improving the current national resilience capability through identifying areas of concern, lessons to be learned and successful approaches. By being part of the University of Wolverhampton's research unit, SQUARED APPLES is sharing knowledge and practical experience from across the resilience sector to improve the future response capability.

16/06/21 - Understanding the Emotional Impact of the Pandemic on the Workforce

Working with internally recognised colleagues, SQUARED APPLES is seeking to promote the need to build greater awareness of the emotional impact of the Covid 19 pandemic. Recent research through the mental health research groups MIND and HEADSPACE have shown that in the last 12 months there has been a significant rise in poor mental health issues, yet the evidence also shows that when employees ask for help, their employers retract away from them.

The research has also shown that while building a positive mental health is important to build for employees, there is a limited level of engagement or understanding by employers about how great a threat poor mental health can be to productivity and retention. Employees reported that over the last 12 months, priorities shifted from work to maintaining a healthy balance, while many employees reported that work placed stress was on the increase, due to poor agile working practices and understanding by their employers.

Building on this initial research, SQUARED APPLES is aiming to build greater understanding and awareness of the emotional impact of the pandemic. If you wish to partake in the research programme, please follow the link to complete the short survey.

Emotional impact survey

If you wish to obtain a softy copy of the final research paper when it is completed, please contact us below and indicate that you would like a soft copy of the final research report when it is completed.

Contact us

10/09/20 - Business Continuity Journal Article

Building on the research conducted through his PhD, Dr Aaron Gracey has recently published his article on the need for organisations to develop an Organisational Resilience Management System (ORMS). The work, published in the internationally circulated Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, highlights the need for organisations to build a greater awareness at the strategic level of the various concepts, principles and activities that need to be linked in order to deliver an effective resilience framework. Looking at an organisation as a “system of systems”, Dr Gracey proposes a new way of thinking on how organisations approach their long-term strategic planning, and how they link it to day-to-day activities.

If you wish to know more about the ORMS, or wish to have access to the journal report, please contact us here:

21/07/19 Squared Apples Presents ORM3 Framework

Five years in development, members of Squared Apples have recently circulated the Oraganisational Resilience Management Maturity Model (ORM3), presenting it at the Resilience Association in London, and then the Business Continuity Institute in Utrecht, Holland.

Further information is available on the model in the slideshow below, which gives a high level of the research approach and the components of the framework. If you wish to discusss the framework in detail, please contact us here. 

28/02/18 Launch of Emotional Blocks.

Maintaining our drive to help build better emotional awareness and self resilience within the young adult community, SQUARED APPLES has released its next training tool. 

The tool focuses on creating an understanding of the effect of events onto the individual, through the visualisation of the impact on their self resilience. The event cards explore the various situations that an individual may encounter during their lives, and the outcome on their self– resilience. The tool has been designed to enable it to be used in a number of ways, depending on the age of the audience.

By creating an environment which is promoting discussions around the emotions and their impact, it enables individuals to explore their own feeling and experiences either through self reflection or peer discussion. The tool also enables the session leader to explore social acceptability and pressures to conform through the controlling, rather than managing, of certain emotions to enable individuals to fit into certain social groups.

Please see the information sheet below for more details on the training tool.

Working with schools, pupils and social service advisors, SQUARED APPLES is focussing on developing greater emotional awareness within the young adult population.

As part of this approach, SQUARED APPLES is creating a number of tools which seek to enhance awareness through play.  This approach will take a diverse approach to the development of resources that will support the development of emotional awareness within schools, academies and colleges. The tools will also be designed to support social servces, foster parents and carers to help develop emotional awareness with young adults in their care.