Sometimes you have to be pragmatic. While it would be great to have the business case for business continuity generally agreed in an organisation, it’s not always that simple. So if there’s an opportunity for business continuity to get into a business on the coattails of some other project, it may merit consideration.
(more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Business Case’
Getting BC In Through The Virtualisation Back Door
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011Moving towards a business case for business continuity
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011Making the business case for business continuity is an area that companies struggle with. Whereas fires and explosions can have people’s imaginations working feverishly, when a little time goes by and they don’t happen, they get relegated to a “to do” list that might get done by the IT department, but not by others. (more…)
The Business Case for Business Continuity Management
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009It is commonly the case that Business Continuity is on the agenda due to external regulatory or audit requirements and this provides sufficient impetus for a Business Continuity Implementation. With or without these external pressures, a business case for the cost of implementing and maintaining business continuity will need to be created.
Below are some benefits and justifications that can be examined when establishing a business case for implementing and maintaining a business continuity program:
- The cost of not doing anything. What is your organisation’s level of exposure to business interruption risks? These may include Hardware Failure, Human Error, Natural Disaster etc. Calculate the true cost of downtime should your business suffer an interruption and what the likely timeframe is for recovery in your present situation. Eg. Unproductive staff costs, loss of revenue, loss of critical data and equipment, damage to the organisation’s reputation and the opportunity for your competition to take market share.
- General organisational resilience due to being risk aware and implementing mitigating actions, leading to reduced downtime.
- The Business Impact Assessment (BIA) phase of a business continuity program can help to find areas of process inefficiency that can be addressed.
- Cost savings that may be possible through server rationalization using virtualization technology.
- Reduced customer churn if they are subject to less service interruptions.
- Enhanced market position. It can give you an edge over your competition if you can provide assurances of continuity and service.
- Audit or regulatory compliance. Less exposure to compliance problems.
- Avoidance of penalties or fines for non-compliance with deadlines eg. Payroll within a certain timeframe according to an award or providing services to your customers within the terms of a Service Level Agreement.
It is also critical when developing a business case for implementing and maintaining a business continuity program to include the up-front costs of implementation eg. Consulting, internal staff time, establishment of IT systems as well as recurring costs such as leasing of recovery seats, software licenses and internal staff time for ongoing maintenance of the plans and conducting testing.
Business Impact Analysis
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) allows an organisation to identify the criticality of processes, interdependencies with other business units and third party suppliers, critical system requirements (e.g. systems and applications), vital files, network drives and hardware, describe manual work arounds and prioritise business functions during a recovery situation. The BIA forms the basis for the Business Continuity Plans.
A business impact analysis should take into account tangible financial impacts (opportunity cost, increased cost of working expenses, revenue reduction, uninsured asset replacement, capital value and financial viability) as well as intangible, non-financial impacts (reputation, brand and presence, legal and contractual liabilities, quality of product and services, stakeholder confidence and support, staff morale and well being, operational and management control and environmental damage).
A clear understanding of these impacts will help form the justification for the level of business continuity\IT disaster recovery investment required.