Business Continuity Planning – Protecting the Bottom Line or a Moral Duty?

In yesterday’s Alliance for Business Continuity & Disaster Preparedness (www.preparespokane.com) meeting, we spent some time discussing why more businesses don’t take business continuity planning more seriously, especially the small to medium sized business owners. Owners of small to medium sized businesses have always struggled with the issue of business continuity planning. “Why do I need a plan?” is often the question that they ask.

SMB owners usually have a hard time relating to the specific risks they face and even more so the impact to their business and bottom line. In the Disaster Recovery Journal, Fall 2008 issue, John Orlando, the director for the Norwich University Master of Science in Business Continuity Management offers up a different spin on the subject for justifying the development of a business continuity plan – Is Business Continuity a Moral Duty? I suggest you take the time to read it; I think you will find his opinion quite interesting.

Is it the moral duty of a business owner to develop a business continuity plan? As Orlando suggests, when you consider the potential obligation to customers, workers, and the community, it just might be. There are many drivers when you consider why an organization should consider business continuity, and moral duty just might be another. I’d be interested in your thoughts, let me know what you think.

Where Does Business Continuity Planning Reside in Your Organizational Food Chain?

At last count, the team at IT-Lifeline and I have been involved in 33 different business continuity planning engagements with different clients. A common thread regarding the success of those engagements has been the level to which the client planner reported inside the organization and who sponsored the planning process. The topic of who owns BCP in an organization has been a long standing issue. One thing that is obvious from my perspective is that the higher up the BCP owner is, the more clout, the greater success in terms of plan content and thus greater the plan’s viability.

So who has responsibility for BCP in your organization and to whom do they report? In a recent study that I read, a group of participants suggested 50/50 that whoever had responsibility for Risk Management or the CEO should take on that risk. An interesting observation given that the roots of BCP are IT-Based. All participants agreed that whoever ended up with the task needed the endorsement and involvement of the entire C-suite.

Business continuity planning as I’ve stated in prior blogs and presenations, ain’t what it used to be. Business continuity can no longer be “assigned” as a project and ignored by those above. My experience indicates that businesss continuity planning is not an information technology responsibility. When it is IT driven, which happens three times more than any other group in an organization today, the process often bogs down and fails.

Business continuity planning is a “business” responsibility. It must involve the senior executives, the IT group and the rest of the business. Anything less usually results in an ineffective plan that would not work at time-of-event. Where does your plan stand given its sponsorship and involvement?

Business Continuity Planning – The Formula For Success

Plan on developing a business continuity plan? Do you know the formula for success? Business Continuity is the ability of an organization to ensure continuity of service and support of its stakeholders. Business Continuity is being drives by a number of factors – regulatory requirements, contractual agreements, guarunteed insurability, and sometimes just plain old good business sense. Whether an organization is contemplating business continuity planning for the first time or looking for ways to impreive their existing plan, finding the right formula for success is a must. In an effort to get your arms around the process, you must possess knowledge of your specific risk, and the impact to the business in the event of a major disruption in order to properly prepare a cost effective and viable business continuity plan.

THE FORMULA:

1. Determine what your specific risks to the organization are.
2. Know what the specific impact to the organization will be.
3. Identify who needs to be involved, what needs to be done, why it needs to be done, where it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how it will be done.
4. Write the plan.
5. Maintain, test and exercise your plan.

DR Planning

Is this how your employees / co-workers would react in an emergency situation?