Marks & Spencer sets great store on partnership approach to BCM

Embedding a business continuity culture

Leading retailer Marks & Spencer’s (M&S) small business continuity (BC) team is responsible for co-ordinating BC activity across 18 head offices, 41 distribution centres, 676 stores and 75,000 employees globally. With limited in-house resources, M&S must rely heavily on its trusted business continuity partners to ensure uninterrupted operations.

Our goal is to establish M&S as a market leader in retail business continuity by embedding a groupwide BCM culture. Our staff and customers expect nothing less.

A holistic and integrated BCM solution

Business Solution

• Workplace Recovery
• Network Hosting
• QuickShip service for IP telephony
• Sungard AS’s Continuity Management Solution: LDRPS software.

Maintaining key teams at time of disaster and ensuring the continuation of essential production and recovery business processes requires a holistic and integrated solution. To this end, M&S relies on Sungard AS’s Workplace Recovery capabilities throughout the UK and Republic of Ireland, its QuickShip service for telephony continuity and network hosting services for connectivity. M&S also aims to automate and streamline its BCM response through the deployment of specialist LDRPS software. This combination of services is designed to keep the Marks & Spencer group up and running, both in the UK and internationally.

Explaining some of the reasons why M&S renewed its initial contract for a further two years in 2010, John Frost says, “Over the years we have been impressed with Sungard infrastructure, the quality of its wide-ranging services and the skill and professionalism of its people at all levels of the organisation.”

A spirit of pragmatism drives the retailer’s BCM programme. Having conducted full business impact analyses across the organisation, M&S has been able to identify recovery priorities based on realistic Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives. These are reflected in plans that are practical, action-driven, business area-specific and easy to maintain.

A robust assurance programme ensures plans are thoroughly tested with an annual exercise involving the Crisis Management Team, Work Area Recovery tests and a rolling desktop testing programme in which each area of the business is methodically tested twice yearly.

One of M&S’s simple but effective innovations is the ‘evac pack’ – a distinctive, branded red suitcase distributed to every store that contains essential items for use in a crisis

While M&S had a well-developed BCM programme covering its UK organisation, this level of preparedness was not mirrored in its international operations and the BC team made redressing this situation a priority in 2010.

The team created an objective rating system to measure the preparedness of every department, store and business operation in the group worldwide, enabling them to direct their efforts where most needed.

Over the years we have been impressed with Sungard infrastructure, the quality of its wide-ranging services and the skill and professionalism of its people at all levels of the organisation.

Preserving the brand reputation by reducing risk of interruption to business operations

Business benefits 

• Extends capability of small in-house team
• Preserves M&S’s reputation for reliability and excellent customer service
• Reduces risk of interruption to business operations
• Avoids financial loss and protects shareholder value
• Prevents fall in market share
• Peace of mind for employees, suppliers and shareholders
• Consistent approach to business continuity around the globe.

M&S has been particularly successful in embedding a BCM culture throughout its organisation. Recognising that its employees may well be on the front line in an emergency – as indeed they were in the 7/7 London bombings – M&S places great emphasis on ensuring employees know what to do in a crisis to keep themselves, their colleagues and members of the public safe.

BCM is woven into the fabric of daily store and depot operations through measures such as major incident contact cards, a dedicated page in the M&S quarterly magazine, a BC portal on the intranet and compulsory BC training.

The effectiveness of M&S’s BCM programme is such that the retailer was a finalist in the Business Continuity Team of the Year category in the 2011 BC Awards while John Frost scooped the Newcomer of the Year title. Summing up the close working relationship that has developed between M&S and Sungard AS, John Frost comments, “I consider Sungard my BC partner in the fullest sense.”