Business continuity in 2014

During the last quarter of 2013 Continuity Central conducted an online survey asking business continuity professionals about their expectations for 2014.

Overall 126 responses were received, with 8.7 percent being from business continuity professionals in small organizations (50 or less employees); 9.5 percent from medium sized organizations (51 to 250 employees); and 81.7 percent from large organizations (251+ employees).

Change levels

The survey asked respondents: ‘What level of changes do you expect to see in the way your organization manages business continuity during 2014?’

Only 16.8 percent of respondents expect no changes in organizational business continuity in 2014.

Almost half of respondents (49.6 percent) expect to see small changes; and a third (33.6 percent) anticipate large changes in the way their organization manages business continuity.

The respondents expecting to see changes were asked to provide details of the one area that is likely to have the biggest impact on business continuity practices or strategies within their organization. The key trends were:

10.3 percent of respondents expect to see a significant increase in testing and/or exercising activities;
9.3 percent will be making major revisions to BCM strategies and/or BCP(s);
8.2 percent will embark on new ISO 22301 alignment, implementation and certification projects;
8.2 percent will be taking a more holistic approach to BCM;
Changes in the business / organizational structure will impact 6.2 percent of respondents;
5.2 percent will be making improvements in incident management processes;
There will be an increased focus on supply chain resilience / supply chain dependencies in 4.1 percent of respondents’ organizations;
4.1 percent will be taking a new approach to BIAs or will be making a complete reassessment.

Challenges

Respondents were asked to report on ‘the biggest challenge that may hold back business continuity developments within your organization during 2014’. Two major themes emerged:

Lack of budget, funds and resources: 38 percent of respondents reported that this was a likely to be a major problem in 2014.
Lack of top management commitment, buy-in and support: 16.4 percent said that this was an ongoing issue.

Other recurring challenges were:

Lack of business unit support: 6.4 percent;
Lack of a BCM culture: 5.5 percent;
Staffing difficulties (loss of business continuity staff and difficulties in recruiting staff with appropriate qualifications): 5.5 percent;
Lack of time available for business continuity staff to manage all their tasks: 4.5 percent.

Business continuity spending in 2014

While many business continuity professionals seem to be unhappy with funding levels in their organization, most organizations do at least seem to be maintaining business continuity spending. The survey found that in 12.9 percent of organizations business continuity spending will be ‘much higher’ in 2014 compared to 2013 and will be ‘higher’ in 27.4 percent. 47.6 percent of organizations will maintain business continuity spending at the same level in 2014 as it was in 2013.

Only 10.5 percent of respondents said that organizational business continuity spending would be lower in 2014 than in 2013; and just 1.6 percent said that it would be ‘much lower’.

Recruitment

Finally, the survey asked respondents about how their organization’s business continuity team is likely to change in 2014. The vast majority (71.2 percent) said that their business continuity team would remain the same size; 24.8 percent said that it would grow and 4.0 percent said that it would shrink.

•Date: 2nd January 2014 • World •Type: Article • Topic: BC statistics

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