Earlier this year, Mercer Consulting published a report based on its Business Responses to the COVID-19 Outbreak survey that revealed 51 percent of organizations around the world do not have a business continuity plan to respond to disasters or other business disruptions such as the current pandemic. The report provided insights from over 300 businesses across 37 countries and revealed that 27.2 percent of companies do not have a business continuity plan in place, while 23.8 percent are in the process of developing a plan. Furthermore, the study also noted that at the time of the survey 31.1 percent of organizations that do have a plan had not yet implemented it while 17.9 percent of companies had already begun implementing their business continuity plans.
So why the lack of preparedness? Business Continuity, or more broadly “Business Resiliency”, continues to suffer from a common set of well documented recurring issues such as lack of executive buy-in/commitment, low priority, and/or time, resource, and money constraints. Several of these issues were highlighted in a webinar conducted in the late April of this year. The guest firm presented the results of its state of business continuity management (BCM) survey which revealed:
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Much of this can be encapsulated as “lack of foresight”, or as some would call it, “lack of imagination”, by not seriously considering how devastating disruptive events could be and in preparing a proper response to such events. The current pandemic is illustrative of this issue. In a recent Business Continuity Institute (BCI) 2020 Horizon Scan Report, the risk of a pandemic (as represented by “Non-occupational diseases”) in the next 12 months was rated 21 out of 22 potentially concerning events. What was particularly interesting was that the potential for a pandemic was scored higher than the impact from a pandemic itself, which had the lowest impact rating of the 22 risk events. In another study by Gartner, (2020 Strategic Road Map for Business Continuity Management) a pandemic wasn’t even on the “radar” of the top 5 Supplier’s risk events. Clearly, most everyone underestimated the potentiality and impact of a world-wide pandemic such as COVID.
A Case For Business Continuity Managed Services
A crisis has the tendency to glaringly reveal an organization’s functional weaknesses and shortcomings as well as its strengths. As implied by the Mercer findings, the vast majority of companies were ill prepared to respond to this pandemic which brings into question an organization’s commitment to its business continuity program. The “good news”, as it were, is that COVID and the lack of preparation for it has received the undivided attention of corporate Boards and executive management.
Time will tell how much more committed businesses will be to business resiliency and how the current pandemic will impact such decisions. In the meantime, what options are there for companies seeking to jump start a resiliency program or improve or accelerate a nascent or struggling program, especially in light of current events? The options vary from building/investing in your own program to hiring expensive consultancies or some combinations thereof. Executive commitment notwithstanding, building your own program takes time, money and resources to hire new or experienced staff, train, and build the necessary infrastructure, including software, to develop, implement and manage a sustainable program. While consultants solve the problem of a potentially long implementation time and lack of methodology, tools and experience, they can be costly.
However, more affordable, flexible and effective options are emerging. Following the various IT “as a service” offerings for software (SaaS), platforms (PaaS) and infrastructure (IaaS), “Business Continuity As A Service” (BCaaS) offers a potential solution for those companies seeking to start a program or grow an existing one and are facing such challenges as:
Things To Know Why Draas Is Integral To Business Continuity Planning
An effective BCaaS offering should include a baseline suite of services with the ability to adjust scope as needed. Such capabilities should include:
For companies having to respond to new or increased demands for a business continuity management program, the BCaaS managed service may provide the appropriate solution to quickly implement a cost effective BCM program while minimizing many of its obstacles and unpredictability. Moreover, these advantages present a stronger case to executives for their buy-in. To learn more about Virtual Corporation’s BCaaS managed services offering, visit our web site and schedule a meeting with one of our professional staff. Don’t be caught unprepared for the next disruptive event to your business.
Bob has been with Virtual Corporation since 2001 during which he has led many Business Impact Analysis (BIA), Business Continuity Planning, and Risk Assessments projects across health care, manufacturing, government, technology and other services industries. In addition, he has been instrumental in building and refining Virtual’s processes and toolkit bringing new approaches and insights to client engagements. His career spans materials engineering, programming, telecom marketing research, IT outsourcing and business continuity. Bob holds PMP, AMBCI and SCRA certifications and has a Master’s in Chemical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Bachelor’s in Metallurgical Engineering from McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario.)Many companies build and manage their business continuity program in-house — perhaps hiring experts in resiliency to help design and execute a program.
Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Service & Solutions
But if you lack the in-house expertise — or you need to implement a business continuity program quickly — you have another option: business continuity as a service.
Business continuity as a service is the practice of contracting with a third-party firm to design, build, execute, and maintain your resiliency program.
At , we work with a variety of companies to design and maintain their business continuity programs, often using ISO 22301 as the industry standard for our service.
Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity As A Service Solution Delivered By Dicom Systems And Powered By Google Cloud — Dicom Systems
We offer business continuity as a service to companies of all sizes, from small consulting firms to multi-billion-dollar utilities, healthcare organizations, and technology firms.
In many locations, you won’t find many experienced business continuity experts, particularly those that will fit with your organization’s culture. That makes the recruiting and retention process extremely difficult for many companies.
Even in larger locations like Boston or New York City, business continuity roles are often difficult to fill. The process of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding someone can take months or even years.
The Part It Plays In Business Continuity And Resilience
Business continuity as a service lets you rapidly access experienced continuity experts, without having to recruit or hire them as direct employees.
Many of the companies we work with think of our team as embedded members of their teams — integrating our experts directly into their processes as we oversee their continuity programs.
The nature of business continuity is that you never know exactly when your program will be called into action. A company must build an in-house team and create its business continuity program years before a major disruption brings the team into action.
Business Continuity Planning
The staff costs and leadership investment required to create and maintain an in-house continuity program are significant — more than some companies want to invest.
Business continuity as a service is significantly more flexible. You’ll see improvements to your continuity program much faster than you would by hiring in-house, and you won’t have to worry about management overhead, losing staff, or replacing a key team member.
Since you can’t hire and onboard continuity experts in the critical moment, companies find themselves pulling staff with no experience in resiliency — then asking them to help in an emergency capacity.
Tips For Building A Saas Business Continuity Plan
This was a common story in March of 2021 when COVID-19 suddenly caused shutdowns and mass layoffs across our economy — a practice that led many companies to struggle as they adjusted to a rapidly changing world.
By contrast, business continuity as a service empowers you can scale up quickly, accessing continuity experts to the team as needed — letting you adjust faster than you could otherwise.
The first step of our business continuity program is to complete a comprehensive evaluation of your current program through our proprietary Resiliency Diagnosis process — including a full evaluation report detailing:
End To End Business Continuity Management Program
For companies interested in our business continuity as a service program, the evaluation includes a detailed plan for how we will oversee your continuity program moving forward.
Vendors are a critical part of business continuity and resiliency. As part of our business continuity as a service offer, our team will:
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As an integrated part of your team, we will oversee the communication and awareness strategy within your company for the business continuity program, which may look something like:
Top 13 Priorities For A Strong Business Continuity Plan
For small to medium-sized businesses, we can usually transition oversight of your continuity program to our team within one to three months. This startup effort includes all of the steps defined above, along with specific customization of our approach to your organization’s needs.
Larger, more complicated programs take longer, of course, but our team can work with you to transition responsibilities one area at a time — enabling you to benefit immediately from our team’s expertise.
Some companies ask us for help with a couple of areas outside of a normal business continuity program. For those situations, we provide these optional services:
Business Continuity And Disaster Recovery Consulting Services
If you’re using Microsoft Excel, SharePoint, Access, or another inadequate tool to manage your business continuity program, we can help you transition to a professional business continuity solution.
We have partnerships with leading software companies that enable us to transition your program to a purpose-built business continuity software solution for any
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