BCM: think culture, not quick fix!

By Ansophie Strydom, business development manager, ContinuitySA.

It seems that a lot of companies are under the impression that if they successfully conclude a business continuity management (BCM) project, they’ve done their duty in protecting their stakeholders’ interests! Unfortunately, business continuity is NOT JUST a project...it’s an ongoing state of mind.
And it needs to start right at the top.

Let’s be honest: business continuity management is not glamorous. It’s not exciting, leading edge stuff that makes employees fall over themselves to become involved. It’s not what sets a CEO apart from others, or perhaps what makes a company more profitable....but the world has seen evidence that disasters DO occur. Major disasters hit the headlines; but most companies are unlikely to ever get caught up in one. It is the minor local disasters such as fire, telecoms failure, electricity failure, sabotage, strikes and other such incidents which are the real business continuity issues for most companies: such things can have a huge impact on day-to-day business.

While some companies have successfully embraced business continuity management, a lot of companies struggle to make it a seamlessly integrated aspect of their organisation. Why? I believe that it’s because to truly have a successful BCM programme in your company two very important things should happen:

1. BCM needs to be elevated to strategic levels; and
2. BCM should be embedded as a part of your company culture.

We’ve seen it many times: business continuity without executive support and endorsement is a lot like “lights....camera.....and no action”.

And never before have executives been so empowered with knowledge and supporting evidence about BCM! It SHOULD be a lot easier to make business continuity an integral part of everyday business culture nowadays.

An interesting trend worldwide is that companies with strong cultures of business continuity tend to include business partners, vendors and customers in their plans. The reason is that many companies have realised that they need to make provision for not only their own business processes, but also those processes that have dependencies on 3rd party service providers and vendors. Your business may be ok, but everything around you may not be! For example, by including their customers in testing activities, companies in the US have found that it gives them a competitive advantage because their clients know that they’re getting the best of service and know they can count on them! Companies therefore give their customers an active part and a voice in the business continuity plan.

Unfortunately, in many companies, especially in South Africa where few companies have people dedicated exclusively to BCM, there is still a mentality amongst employees involved in business continuity management of: “Why should I make an effort with BCM? I’m not even getting paid any extra money!” What employees do not realise, is that they are in the same position as the other stakeholders: if the company ceases to exist after a disaster... so does their income!

“If you find yourself constantly asking top management to devote more resources to business continuity, then your company needs a cultural makeover. Today’s best-prepared organisations have constructed a culture of continuity, one that results from every business unit taking ownership of business continuity planning, budgeting and strategy leaving IT to do what it knows best - operations and logistics,” says Mitch Hodus, VP, of a Boston financial services firm. This quotation brings us to the next very important question: How do we change culture?

The answer is simple: by changing attitudes and behaviour! How? It has been suggested that the best way to build a culture of continuity is to communicate the importance of continuity analysis and planning on a daily basis to everyone within the company. Unfortunately, with the huge overload of information that forms part of our working environment, this is no longer efficient. More often than not, co-workers suffer from the ‘death-by-information’ syndrome, resulting in communications about business continuity remaining unread. The first goal should be to get top management to sponsor and drive the change. Top-level buy-in makes it easier to get everybody involved in business continuity.

David Honour – editor of Continuity Central - suggests that aspects to include in the change management strategy should include:

Working top-down
Senior Management has to be on-board. Without their support and sponsorship you will get no-where. They need to understand what you are trying to do and why, and need to be included in the initial strategy development phase. Senior management must lead by example and must model the business continuity / risk aware culture that you are attempting to create.

Selling change
The reasons behind change need to be clearly articulated. If people do not understand why they need to change, they are more likely to resist change or to offer half-hearted acceptance. Extensive training and awareness work needs to be carried out. Employees need to know ‘what’s in it for me?’ They need to understand that the changes that are being made will safeguard their jobs and their future, by making the company more resilient against failure.

Cascading modeling
Each tier of management must take responsibility for modeling the new risk-aware culture. Managers must take responsibility for selling the culture change to their staff and for ensuring that the day-to-day requirements of the new risk-aware culture are met.

Win over the human resource department
Your most effective supporters should be the HR department. HR will need to understand and buy-in to your vision and will need to be part of the training and awareness programme. When the culture is established HR will need to take responsibility for building risk awareness and responsiveness into HR policies, job descriptions, psychometric testing etc

Enforcement
Once the new culture is established it must be enforced. There must be some sanction for those who consistently fail to manage and report risks.

(See http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature036.htm)

This brings us to the very important second goal which should be to educate employees, and get them actively involved in the business continuity management process.

Generally any form of change brings, firstly, fear of the unknown and, secondly, lack of understanding. In contrast to this, we all know the principle that ‘People support what they help create’. This rings true for BCM as well.

All employees should have a basic understanding of the principles of business continuity management, and its importance to the company. Employees should also be actively involved in the planning process for their own business unit.

When it comes to maintenance and execution, the specific employees dedicated to the BCM Process (e.g. business continuity practitioners), or those with some responsibility (e.g. business continuity coordinators) should ideally be subjected to performance-based compensation. Business continuity management should form part of their key performance areas (KPAs) and they need to be measured on the agreed performance levels. This will elevate BCM to the level of importance and focus it deserves!

It’s been proven time and time again that interventions clearly tied to business strategy work, which is why the alignment between strategy, culture and leadership is critical. This sends a strong message to top management:

- Formulate - your BCM strategy.
- Communicate - it to everyone involved.
- Lead - by example.

http://www.continuitysa.co.za/

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•Date: 28th Dec 2006• Region: Africa/World •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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