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Is Your Company Prepared for the Worst? Why Business Continuity Must Be Part of Your Strategy
By David Nolan: You may think your company is prepared for adversity – but if you believe these 7 common misconceptions, it’s not. Imagine a runner on a treadmill following a preset workout program. Even as the treadmill speeds up during the higher-intensity phases, as long as the runner is prepared for changing conditions, she will stay in sync with the machine – but if the runner falters or stops, and the treadmill keeps going, she’ll stumble, fall and may even end up injured. A business trying to remain competitive and profitable in today’s world is like the runner trying to keep pace with the machine. If a business is prepared for whatever adverse circumstances come up, the organization can take it in stride and keep moving forward. If a business is not prepared, then it will experience disruptions – and, like a runner who gets injured, the business may find it difficult to recover. To keep the business running and revenue flowing, executives must include business continuity in their overarching company strategy – and that requires a fundamental understanding of what business continuity is and what it means for the organization. Defining Business Continuity Business continuity comprises certain processes that allow a company to continue to deliver products and services – and therefore continue to bring in revenue and meet its commitments – no matter what circumstances may befall it. The types of disruptions that threaten all businesses include: IT services disruption – any disruption affecting access to IT ... Read more
The Case for Integration – Converting the BCM Silo into an Enterprise Risk Foundation
New demands are being placed on the Business Continuity organization to provide more services to the enterprise, often with little or no resources to support them. Higher levels of productivity, meeting new regulatory mandates, and providing coverage for new corporate acquisitions, are just a few of these new demands. But with these challenges comes the opportunity to increase our value to the enterprise transforming the traditional view of BCM as a necessary utility to a strategic part of the enterprise risk framework. Join Douglas Weldon, Director – Operational Risk and Incident Management for Ipreo, at the 2017 Continuity Insights New York Conference as he explores current trends, especially the cyber security drivers, that are already influencing our BCM programs and how we can take advantage of these trends to further leverage our value-proposition within our companies. During The Case for Integration – Converting the BCM Silo into an Enterprise Risk Foundation you’ll discover the key to better leveraging our skills is to identify our core competencies as business continuity practitioners and determine how we can extend those competencies more broadly across other areas of operational and enterprise risk.
A Methodological Approach for Developing a BIA
From defining the boundaries, to assessing financial and operational impacts, to identifying critical processes, to determining RPOs for critical activities, there is a true methodological approach for developing a business impact analysis (BIA). The BIA allows organizations to identify the critical processes of business and its continuity requirements, which become the main issues for the development of an incident management plan (IMP). In this article from Continuity Central, Alberto G. Alexander, Ph.D, MBCI, author of A Methodology for Business Impact Analysis: The BS 25999-2:2007 Approach, details nine methodological steps for developing a BIA and discusses information gathering methods and BIA project management aspects. Read the full article.
Shadow IT – More Vital Than You Might Think . . . 5 Self-Help DR Steps to Take Now!
By Jon Murphy Love it or hate it, with the consumerization of IT and rapid adoption of all things cloud computing, most organizations are loudly demonstrating their need for new tools to do more – faster and more efficiently than ever before. That in part is making Shadow IT pervasive in most of those organizations. Some estimates have it accounting for as much 30%-50% of IT spend. Other estimations have as much as 80% of workforces using some form of unsanctioned software (SaaS or otherwise) to get their day-to-day jobs and special projects timely completed. By “Shadow IT” we are referring to, what some have also dubbed Stealth IT, describing hardware and software used by people in organizations without explicit authorization by the organization’s IT department. This hidden-from-IT software and systems also includes innumerable homegrown Access databases, scripts, and Wordpress/PHP files on local desktops as well in various places out in the cloud, like AWS for instance. So, with this much utilization of, or even dependence on Shadow IT, what would happen in a Disaster Recovery (DR) scenario in which the organization’s work force lost all that work in progress (WIP) or connectivity to the countless sites that corporate IT is “officially” and sometimes blissfully, ignorant of today? Some might be inclined to say, good riddance to bad rubbish. After all, most traditional IT pros will tell you that all those doings in the shadows can introduce security risks when unsupported hardware and software are not subject to the same ... Read more
BCI Good Practice Guidelines Training Course to Be Offered
The BCI Good Practice Guidelines Training Course (CBCI) offers a solid description of the methods, techniques and approaches used by business continuity (BC) professionals worldwide to develop, implement, and maintain an effective Business Continuity Management (BCM) program. The three-day-plus course will be offered immediately following the Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference. The dates and times are Tuesday, October 24, 2017, 3:45 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.; Wednesday and Thursday, October 25 and 26, 2017, 8:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Friday, October 27, 2017, 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The course takes you through the complete BCM Lifecycle step-by-step, and provides practical insights into all aspects pertaining to the development, implementation and management of a BCM program within an organization through the instructor’s use of case studies and real-life examples. Learn more and register.
Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference Set for Monday
The sixth annual Continuity Insights New York Conference will kick off Monday, October 23. The two-day event will take place at the TKP Conference Center in New York City. The event will feature presentations by business continuity and resilience professionals from a wide range of industries. The conference includes sessions on emerging issues, training, and professional development, technology enablement, and other topics. Continuity Insights New York will also feature two keynote presenters. Gil Meyer, a crisis management expert who inspires creative change in how organizations approach crisis management and the author of “Corporate Smokejumper: Crisis Management Tools, Tales and Techniques,” a groundbreaking book that provides an inside look at the gut-wrenching challenges that can befall any organization in today’s fast-paced and complex world, will keynote day one. If you always wondered what it is like to be inside the conference room where executives wrestle with complex dilemmas, here are tales from behind the closed doors. Meyer will share the inside perspective of a veteran practitioner who throughout his career developed creative new ways for addressing the gut wrenching challenges that come with leading the response to high-stakes crises. The conference will continue on Tuesday, October 24 with a second keynote presentation by David Lindstedt, the founder of Readiness Analytics. His address, “Everything You’re Doing is Wrong? (Helpful Hints from the Adaptive BC Manifesto),” will discuss the emergence of a new, exciting, “Lean” alternative to traditional preparedness planning practices; starting with the drivers behind the need for a sea change and ... Read more
Will You Be Ready When Disaster Strikes?
Businesses are under siege from an increasing number of natural and man-made disruptive events. One crisis can destroy your business and impact the lives of all involved. The recently published book, The Ultimate Business Continuity Success Guide, demonstrates how cutting-edge preparation techniques and tools can make your business unbreakable while increasing revenue and reducing your expenses. In The Ultimate Business Continuity Success Guide: How to Build Real-World Resilience and Unleash Exciting New Value Streams, author Marty Fox, CNCP, goes beyond ‘what to do’ and explains ‘how to do it’. He details proven tips, techniques, and tools – 1,001 in total – dispensing information that practitioners can use to build and strengthen resilience and discover hidden growth opportunities. Fox includes easy-to-follow case studies and examples, serving as a roadmap for learning how to protect your business in an increasingly dangerous world; avoiding the common pitfalls that can destroy your business; becoming aware of critical threats and opportunities in real-time; building a resilience program that works while you sleep; and achieving the peace-of-mind a resilient business provides. More information is available at www.UltimateBusinessContinuity.com.
Surviving a Business Continuity Audit
Comprehensive business continuity audits will traditionally inspect virtually every aspect of a program by evaluating risk-based planning, observing BCP/DR tests, and assessing the entirety of the BIA. Can your business continuity/disaster recovery plan withstand the rigors of an audit? Jacob Neufeld, Enterprise Resiliency Manager with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will present “Surviving A Business Continuity Audit” at the Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference scheduled for October 23-24 at the TKP Conference Center in New York City. This featured session will provide attendees with an overview of business continuity in a critical hospital setting, a basic understanding of the BC audit process, how to prepare for an audit, and how to work with the auditors as a team. Content will address the impetus for an audit, objectives for the audit, areas of focus, methods, required documentation and organization of data, value-added, as well as lessons learned. Learn more and register for the Continuity Insights 2017 New York Conference.
Struggling With Records Management for BCP
Feeling overwhelmed when it comes to records management for your Business Continuity Planning? Whether it’s printed documents, Word documents, spreadsheets, images, emails, or even hand-written notes, it can easily become a struggle to keep your head above water as you attempt to keep track of everything. The following post presents some tips and insights that will help you gain control of your records management and breathe easier when it comes to surviving potential disaster. Continue reading.
The Global Business Continuity Management Program Benchmarking Study
The Continuity Insights and KPMG LLP Global Business Continuity Management Program Benchmarking Study, which surveyed 349 executives from more than 30 countries, is a comprehensive analysis of the current state of BCM programs and the drivers for further program development. It explores changes to the global risk landscape, regulatory requirements, and supply chain interdependencies. Below is the FINAL REPORT along with various SEGMENT REPORTS, noted by: Industry Number of employees Entity type Geographic location Organizational revenue Existence of a steering committee Click here to download the complete 2016 Continuity Insights and KPMG LLP Global Business Continuity Management Program Benchmarking Study. Click on the links below to access the individual segment reports. Industry Reports Computers-IT-Telecomm-Communications-Media Financial_Non US CI-KPMG Financial_Services Government CI-KPMG Healthcare Insurance Manufacturing Professional Services Retail Utilities Employee Size Reports Less than 25 Employees 25 to 100 Employees 100 to 500 Employees 500 to 1,000 Employees 1,000 to 5,000 Employees 5,000 to 9,999 Employees 10,000 to 20,000 Employees More than 20,000 Employees Entity Reports Education Government Agency or Authority Not for Profit Privately Held Company Public Company Geographic Location Reports Local Regional National Global Organizational Revenue Reports Less than $10 Million $10 Million to $50 Million $50 Million to $100 Million $100 Million to $500 Million $500 Million to $1 Billion $5 Billion to $10 Billion More than $10 Billion Steering Committee Reports Steering Committee-YES Steering Committee-NO
