BCM Implementation – what pushed your organization into creating a business continuity management program?
In my experience, the biggest factor was an audit which identified the lack of a cohesive business continuity management system as a problem.
Feedback from BCP Builder Community on LinkedIn:
Major Event
- A major event the organization couldn’t recover from usually prompts and prods executives to get more proactive rather than reactive.
- Enthusiasm for business continuity surged following 9-11. There were discussions around which companies housed in the Twin Towers were up and running the next day and which ones folded because they had no business continuity plan (essentially, backed up information) in place.
Regulation
- In some sectors business continuity is a regulatory requirement.
- For some banks, business continuity is required by federal law.
- In many cases, especially the financial sector, BCM implementation is just to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
- If you are working towards operational resilience because of regulatory compliance alone, then you are doing your program wrong. Regulatory compliance should be an outcome of your program, not the reason for it.
- From a UK public sector perspective, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 put a duty on many public sector organisations to have business continuity plans in place. Additionally, the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 put a duty on the Fire and Rescue Service in the UK to deliver certain duties. The Fire and Rescue Service National Framework clarifies that this requires business continuity plans to be in place. It would be very difficult to build a business continuity culture in organizations which didn’t understand the importance of business continuity, just because the law says you will.
Supply Chain
- Supply chain compliance can be a driver. If there is no evidence of a good business continuity management system, some companies will not issue a contract.
Ultimate Goal
- Who are we trying to protect? That is the livelihood of our fellow employees. Without the ability to recover our business processes we put them in harm’s way and take away their ability to earn a salary, thus, taking away their ability to provide for their families.
- Operational resilience is evidence of a well run business, conscious of its exposures and vulnerabilities and has a program in place actively protecting its colleagues and stakeholders.
If you want to increase your Organizational Resilience, start with preparing a Business Continuity Plan and check out BCP Builder’s Business Continuity Planning Templates.
