Business continuity software survey : SunGard’s response
SunGard’s point-of-view as to whether business continuity managers should use MS Office or specialist BCM software is based upon what customer buying motivations are and what pains need to be remedied. The motives for wanting a plan can be many and complex but if you had to put it into three simple needs then the reasons could be expressed as one or all of the reasons below: 1 Compliance and governance Business continuity management software will appeal strongest to those buyers who want to mitigate all three core issues. On the other hand, there are many businesses that have been caught out by potential customers who suddenly challenge you with an RFI / RFP or ITT that asks the question, ‘Do you have a business continuity plan?’ The need to satisfy that question with an instant positive answer with evidence to back it up could easily drive a business down the Microsoft Office software route. Constant change will frequently tie business continuity managers with Microsoft Office BC plans to the task of updating and maintaining the integrity of the plan in terms of fixing macros and relational data. This means they aren’t focused as much as they could or should be on monitoring the threats to the business and the new ways to mitigate the business from risk, which is really the BC manager’s primary task. By contrast BCM software should free the manager up from low value maintenance tasks and give them back time to stay focused on the primary task of protecting the business but also to market the value of business resilience to customers and stakeholders positioning it as a key differentiator. We see a lot of BCM skills and knowledge in organizations that were developed and honed using Microsoft Office tools, so it’s perfectly understandable for business continuity managers to want to cling on to that format because they have created that knowledge and intellectual property. At an individual level, their IP makes them valuable to the organization, but with this responsibility comes pain when the organization achieves critical mass and the numerous business continuity plans across multiple sites become completely unmanageable in the Microsoft Office format. When an inflection point is reached, business continuity managers then turn to specialist BCM software providers to take away this pain. BCM software can also help to take the customers plans to a higher level of value, with an instantly recognisable professional look and feel that has currency with other professional BC managers who may want to scrutinise the plans as part of procurement and vendor assessment. Our advice to firms facing the dilemma of developing a business continuity plan for the first time is to start off on the right track with a ‘lite’ version of BCM software. With a lite version you will quickly pick up on the principles of the software functionality and it will be intuitive to use. And if the software pack is of a good standard it will also help you stay on the right side of standards and regulations. As your business grows, it will be easier to scale up and migrate to the more advanced versions of the software. Yes, it will cost more in pure procurement terms than MS Office plans, but the time you will personally save to create a credible plan from scratch, that holds water with industry peers and which will be easier to maintain, will be well worth it. From the experienced business continuity user perspective, assuming you don’t have large BC budgets and handfuls of staff, specific BCM software is a no brainer for enterprises with multiple sites and multiple plans. The respondents in the survey and our customers tell us they simply couldn’t manage to keep their plans up to date with MS Office. It is just too onerous to keep all the data up to date across multiple plans in, on occasions, multiple places.
•Date: 28th May 2010 • Region: UK/World •Type: Article •Topic: BC software |
