How vulnerable are public sector systems? cont'd...
Conclusions
In managing any business as usual and/or business continuity situation it is critical to recognise that a successful outcome is judged by both the technical response, and the perceived competence and capability of the management in delivering the business response. The stakeholder perception and communication should be seen as the critical success factor with an equal, if not more urgent priority over the technical solution. Consequently, the acid test is to convincingly demonstrate an effective and suitable business continuity and crisis management capability. This is in contrast to the more familiar pattern of a fall and recovery of a business, which is more representative of the outdated disaster recovery and business resumption approaches.
Business continuity is not solely a set of tools, techniques and mechanisms to be implemented in an organisation. It should reflect a business as usual attitude and type of action taken by managers and staff in both the proactive and reactive sense.
Individual personalities play a crucial and critical role. It is the human factor that is frequently underestimated in BCM. This is of particular importance because the examination of the cause of business continuity situations and crises usually identifies several warning signals that were ignored or not recognised. The key to a successful crisis and BCM capability is to adopt an holistic approach to verify, validate and assure each of the key building blocks of the BCM life cycle and process.
The organisation can assist this process by adopting a matrix team with representatives from the various organisation core functions e.g. human resources, together with key line of business heads to ensure its co-ordination. The key advantage of this method is that it builds on what already exists and has been done thereby enabling a ‘virtual capability’ that provides cost efficiency. A further benefit is that it ensures ‘buy-in’ throughout the organisation.
In adopting this methodology and regularly exercising, rehearsing and testing the organisation maintains an effective, up-to-date, suitable and appropriate BCM and crisis management capability. When a crisis hits the organisation everyone knows what to do and a smooth invocation of the plan takes place ensuring that the impact on business critical activities is minimised and reputation is not tarnished but enhanced.
In essence the key is to identify what service(s) or product(s) is/are critical and secure its/their continued delivery to within acceptable parameters and levels of functionality.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. David J. Smith, MBA, LL.B(Hons), FBCI is a former executive member of the Business Continuity Institute Board of Directors and Chairman of its Education Committee. A retired senior police officer and globally recognised expert concerning Business Continuity and Crisis Management he is a Managing Consultant in the BCM Practice of Symantec UK Limited. He has been involved in defining and advising on BCM and crisis management best practice and benchmarking initiatives within other industry groups, including the Financial Services Authority, The European Foundation for Quality Management and British Standards Institute. He is a visiting lecturer at Coventry University, a successful author, chairman and key-note speaker at national and international conferences. In 2002 he received the prestigious UK Business Continuity Manager of the year award and in 2004 the Business Continuity Personality of the Year Award.
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