Business Continuity

Anja Van Geert

Across
Business Continuity

• Business continuity can be defined as 'the

processes, procedures, decisions and
activities to ensure that an organization
can continue to function through an
operational interruption'.

• Business Continuity is about making

proactive and reactive plans to help your
organisation avoid crises and disasters
and to be able to quickly
return to 'business as usual' should they
occur.

(reference: Business Continuity Central)

Continuity: Crucial Recovery Decisions
Triggers for BCM Growth and Maturity

• BCP increasingly regulated in many

industries, and in many countries.

• Huge disasters (9/11, tsunami, recent

natural disasters…)

• High availability business requirements

that critical data and systems be available
at all times

• Penalties due to delays in critical business

process

• Globalisation
Resilience: BCM focuses on operational risk

Enterprise Risk
• Accidents
• Natural Disasters
Strategic Risk
• Environmental risks –climate, water,…
• Facilities
• Blackmail/Sabotage
• Geopolitical risks
• Social Unrest Operational Credit
• Information Technology
• Legal and Regulatory Compliance
• Supply Chain/Vendor Management
• Business process
Market
• Seperation of Duties
• Workforce
• …
Trends: Business Functions and RTO’s

Gartner's 2010 Risk and Security Survey result in ever decreasing RTOs –
getting closer to the time of the disaster event.
Trends: Spending increases on business continuity

Source : Forrester Research

Trends: Top technology priorities over the next 12 months

Source : Forrester Research

Trends: IT budget breakdown

“In 2010, how much of your IT operation and capital budget will go to the following IT functional activities?”

SMB Enterprise
IT management (CIO or equivalent and direct reports) 9.5% 8.3%
Research and development of emerging technologies 5.3% 4.4%
Business continuity and disaster recovery 7.0% 6.0%
Security 8.2% 7.3%
Application development, customization, and implementation 13.7% 15.0%
Application maintenance 11.8% 13.9%
Information management and storage 10.1% 9.9%
Server and mainframe operations 12.6% 13.1%
Desktop operations 11.0% 11.0%
Network operations 10.9% 11/0%

Base: 1,036 SMB budget decision-makers and 1,183 enterprise budget decision-makers

Source : Forrester Research

Why do BCPs fail?

It starts with the Business Impact Analysis

BCM terminology confusion
Lack of management interest
Time and cost
Too much data, too complex?!
Lack of knowledge of dependencies
Threat to management
Why do BCPs fail?

And it goes on ....

• IT focused
• Narrow plans
• Documentation not readily available
• Documentation outdated
• No or inadequate testing
• Too complex
• Poor assumptions
Human Factor in BCP

• Ability to attend work

‣ How do you know who will “keep their head”?
‣ Can people get to the (recovery) site?
‣ Recognize that your employees will take care of their family first.
‣ Ability to deliver adequate response
‣ Communications internal and external are crucial.
‣ Pay-roll (check your foreign branches!)

• Ability to recover from a crisis

‣ Keeping track of and informing employees
‣ Talent and succession management: who can replace whom? (all levels)
‣ Who can take which decisions at what level? Puchasing of equipment?
The Supply Chain
• Do service providers protect the continuity of your business?
• Multiple suppliers are providing similar products and services to
multiple customers. You are only one of them!
‣ Understand their capabilities and motivations!
‣ Understand their prioritization if their capacity should become limited for any
reason.
‣ Understand how much support they are prepared to provide to you in a crisis.
‣ Understand their vulnerability and how a crisis would impact your business.
Have these risks been covered?
Recommendations
• Plan your 2011 budget, in line with current trends.
• Avoid common pitfalls – work with a seasoned professional.
• Know your business risks – don’t waste time on non-essentials
• Apply crisis management as an enterprise wide program.
• Do not overlook HR aspects of workforce continuity
• Assess Supplier Resilience
• Think future, act wise …. and share.