In an ideal world, your business would rise effortlessly to the pinnacle of its industry, wowing clients and customers alike. In reality, no business, no matter how successful, is without its challenges and it is often the ability to mitigate and eventually overcome these challenges where a business proves its mettle.
One of the ways that organisations can prepare for disruptive events is through business continuity management (BCM). This involves the deployment of Business Continuity Management Planning software and business procedures in order to continue operating when the unexpected occurs, whether that’s a minor hardware failure or a natural disaster. As such, business continuity management does include disaster recovery measures, but it is also about identifying, managing and preventing issues before they occur.
Of course, deciding to implement continuity management measures is not the end of the story and this process comes with its own challenges. The first of these is understanding why you are implementing it in the first place. For some businesses, this will simply be a case of doing the minimum amount of continuity planning required in order to meet regulatory or auditing standards. However, this approach is unlikely to provide robust or reliable risk management. It may sound obvious, but in order to deploy effective business continuity management, you must first identify what it is your company is looking to achieve as a result of its implementation.
Once that has been determined, companies then face the challenge of identifying the scope of their BCM measures. What business processes will be covered? Are some more critical than others? Is the budget available to cover everything that we need to? All of these questions are more complex than they first appear and answering them requires a thorough understanding of your business. In order to achieve this, many IT managers carry out a business impact analysis (BIA).