Business continuity: a different perspective
For years we in the business continuity field have been trying to contrive elaborate justifications to get ‘top management’ to support this specific planning effort. We have developed convoluted arguments that justified business continuity financially, we have quoted figures that demonstrated that companies fail without this recovery capability already in place when a disaster strikes and we have tried to justify this effort as though it were mandated by legislation passed recently or decades in the past. And still we are frustrated by the apparent lack of support by senior management for traditional business continuity planning efforts. It is my experience that senior management of most corporations are a very pragmatic group of businessmen and women. They are interested in any opportunity that will enhance their company’s performance and profitability. They are also less enthusiastic about efforts within the company that are primarily overhead. They understand that some of this is a requirement of prudent management, but their priority is to maintain these efforts while enthusiastically pursuing growth, profit and stockholder advancement. So the question follows, how does senior management view the current versions of business continuity planning? If their behavior is any indication, we can conclude that they see the current approach to this planning as primarily ‘overhead’. Many years ago, I had the good fortune to meet with the CEO of a major medical organization. During this meeting I ventured a comment regarding something he had done during my visit. He had accommodated a request from some of his staff to have all of the company management wear a name tag so they could be recognized while traveling through the buildings and not force the operational staff to stop them and ask who they were. While I acknowledge that the request may have merit for most of the office managers, I felt that it was not necessary for senior management, and certainly not the CEO. This kind gentleman then gave me the most important lecture I ever received on continuity planning. He asked me what I thought he and his senior officers did. I replied that, obviously, they ran the organization. NO!!!, was his reply. We have plenty of managers who run this operation every day. Our jobs are to make sure this organization is still here five years from now to service our clients. For those of you who are frustrated by what you have interpreted as a lack of support for business continuity planning by senior management, it is time to take a step back and re-examine your conclusion. In the vast majority of cases, senior management is very committed to the continuity of the business, this is what they deal with on a daily basis. Don’t confuse their lack of enthusiasm for your perpetuation of some internal procedures as a lack of commitment to the survival of the company. Internal procedures are the responsibility of middle management; senior management regularly deals with new competitors, interest rates, stockholder expectations, disposable income for consumers, and government regulation to name just a few factors. Any one of these factors can cause the failure of the company, not in 2-4 years after a disaster, but in 4-8 months. Senior management knows that a major catastrophe will create new obstacles to the accomplishment of critical strategic goals. They are equally aware that flexibility and innovation will be the cornerstone for a successful recovery of the company from this disaster. The ability to duplicate existing procedures in this environment will only be valuable coincidentally, in most cases new approaches to customer relations and delivery of services will have to be modified as needed. Duplication of existing procedures for the sake of the procedure will never be the answer to survival. As executives talk about the newest buzz word for this recovery planning field – ‘resiliency’ - they are not talking about the various ways that current procedures can be duplicated. They are talking about identifying what needs to be done, developing new ways to support that need and then effectively implementing that change immediately to ensure the company’s ability to achieve its strategic goals. For those planners working hard to find a way to get senior management support for their planning effort – relax, you already have it. However, you should not confuse senior management’s commitment to the continuity of the business with a commitment to perpetuate company procedures. If you want to get their direct involvement then you are going to have to address those issues that will place the company at risk first. These are the issues that senior management deals with everyday. Get to know what the strategic goals of the company are. Then work to identify the support functions necessary to deliver those goals. ‘Support functions’ does not mean ‘mission critical operations’. It means, what can we do to deliver these goals if we are unable to make existing protocols work effectively? ‘Thinking outside of the box’ is the hallmark of a good planner, not finding ways to force existing processes to be effective under pressure. I know that it is uncomfortable, but the facts are that most effective procedures in a disaster will be developed during the disaster. While this seems unorganized, it is really not. Prior planning will have identified key goals, available company assets and external assets (intellectual and physical) and external market impacting factors. All of this information will be used to come up with action plans to deliver the company’s goals in a highly demanding environment. Flexibility and innovation will be the key to successful survival, not ‘the way we always did it’. Many planners seek senior management approval because they feel that major budget considerations will have to be addressed. This is certainly not true. The extensive surveys of company departments, followed by the completion of a number of forms all placed in a large three ring binder as the foundation for the ‘recovery plan’ is not necessary, and so the budget considerations are also not necessary. The disaster itself along with the external factors that arise as a result of the disaster will be the defining considerations when deciding how to use the company assets to achieve the strategic goals. The plain and simple fact of the matter is that there are simply too many variables that occur after a disaster to plan ahead to deal with all of them. Having a plan in place that can be activated with the flip of a proverbial switch will seldom be a viable answer to the disaster itself. General Eisenhower said it best – ‘When planning for war, I have always found plans to be useless, but planning to be invaluable.’ Stop worrying about the documentation and spend your time identifying goals, company assets and a team capable of the innovative thought process that will be critical to success in this demanding environment. As senior management sees it, the ability to survive a power failure or even a tornado will be of little value if competitors erode the customer base and you lose stockholder confidence in the company. Business continuity planning has to start with the most critical risk factors, if you want enthusiastic support by senior management. Author: John Stagl, BELFOR USA
•Date: 23rd March 2007• Region: US•Type: Article •Topic: BC: selling to the board |
