Show me the money! Why you should look at continuity from a business management perspective.


You’re part of a successful business. Why worry about money?  So many business managers I have met over recent years have focussed upon pricing structures and revenue. I have to ask myself why? There are merely two success indicators you should seek when planning business continuity:

  1. Your ability to reliably deliver products or services and keep doing so
  2. The company’s reputation, which must be maintained no matter what happens

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Revenue and profit will follow if you look after the requirements of customers, employees, suppliers, investors and regulators. There is much said about crisis management, incident management business continuity and IT disaster recovery but few have actually looked at all this from a business management perspective. After much deep thought I came up with this.
  • What if a business leader thought about incidents and how they may bring pain? A crisis is often simply an incident that is currently outside of your control. Be ready to manage that incident as soon as you are able. 
  • How much discomfort and how soon would disruption happen?
  • Could anything be done to reduce the effects of a sudden disruption to normal business activity?
  • If there were enough resources within the business, could they be directed to manage specific areas of disruption and contain recovery costs?

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People are often said to be a company’s greatest asset. Relationships with customers and all stakeholders must be nurtured and protected. The vital activities within a business can collectively be called processes and must continue to function if they are to support deliveries of products and services. Expectations setting where processes are degraded must be well communicated and accepted. Premises can be anywhere that business activities can be securely conducted, whether physical of virtual. A local coffee shop may not be quite right if you are to discuss details of that urgent business deal. Just ask yourself, who is also on that open wireless LAN before opening your device to finish that confidential work. Information can be verbal, paper form or via transmitted data. Security of that information is paramount if the business is to protected. Finally; any successful company has rules about the way they work. There are pertaining laws and regulatory demands, company policies, strategy and KPI’s. We can refer to them as business governance.


 A clearly defined recovery strategy is a core element of any good business continuity plan. When disaster strikes a company must be prepared to deal with it, have knowledgeable resources in each of five areas and have planned protective measures beforehand. Now go ahead and ask yourself how well your company is prepared to enable business continuity. If the answer to your question falls short, take action now. 

Editors note: Find out if your BCM plan includes business management. Download the free Business Continuity Maturity Modelling ppt now.

Free Business Continuity Maturity Model Mini Deck

 

Resilience, organizational resilience, business continuity, disaster recovery

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