Business continuity why bother

However, it does not have to be that way. A recent rise in cyberattacks, the ever-present threat of extreme weather and the possibility of outages and failures example British Airways IT failure of that left thousands of holidaymakers stranded at Heathrow and Gatwick airports that serve London is a case in point. Apart from financial loss to the airline, dependent partners like hotels, tour guides, car rentals and even important business meetings were all losers. While BA had a BCM plan of action, it did not really work as nearly , passengers were the innocent victims, as something went terribly wrong.

Ensuring BCM in times of disaster is essential, and the faster, the better. Any downtime is considered unacceptable, so the top priority is getting things up and running quickly. Airports are common targets of terrorist agents, but with contingency plans and alert risk managers knowing exactly the plan of action, such terrorist threats can be mitigated to a certain extent.

What conclusions can be drawn from all these disasters and their after-effects? Being prepared for any eventuality is key to survival, renewal and new beginnings.

The importance of BCM cannot be understated or down played. Personnel need to understand the mission and goals of the company and be able to identify them. Organisations should strive to ensure the implementation of robust objective centric approaches by properly qualified Risk Professionals properly supported by BCM professionals who understand the relationship of BCM to ERM and Corporate Governance.

Follow us. Login Register. October 15, What is Business Continuity Management and why should organisation take it seriously?

Business continuity management is about preparing to deal with the inevitable What is fraud risk management and how to deal with it? This is especially true with companies in the Business to Business space where their customers are other companies who rely on their products and services. Companies want to do business with other companies on whom they can rely to be a steady source of the parts and services they need. Studies have shown that publicly traded companies with business continuity plans lose less shareholder value and regain it more quickly than those that do not.

Companies that promote their plan to their shareholders help cement that trust. Business continuity deals with the recovery of the operations of your business. Disaster recovery deals with the protection of information technology and data.

A disaster recovery plan should be incorporated into a business continuity plan. To truly protect the business, you need both. Is your company making any of these mistakes with its business continuity plan? I can help!

Contact me today for a free one-hour consult on the state of your plan. The five biggest mistakes business leaders make when it comes to business continuity are: Not Having a Plan This is the biggest mistake and the easiest to correct. Why bother having a safety program regulations aside if the company has never had an accident? This is the purpose of a business continuity plan: to help the company recover quickly from an unplanned interruption. Not updating an existing plan This is almost as bad as not having a plan.

Testing the plan will make sure that it will work effectively and will identify any gaps that may exist. Any plan will need to be tested regularly dependant on the complexity, size of organisation and operational risk. Always test the plan with the worst scenario, make it realistic but challenging. Set up in a conference room. The management team can look for gaps making sure that every department is represented.

Each of the management team logically evaluates the components of the plan. The team can set up a specific disaster to see how the plan works. Some organisations incorporate drills and role playing. This can be involved and should be performed on an annual basis.

This can be done by staging an environment to simulate an actual disaster with all the equipment, supplies and personnel and includes business partners including the supply chain.