ICE & Business Continuity

Need an argument for Business Continuity Planning?


This is another activity that lends it self so well to the principles of the ICE Concept.



Bob Brotchie shared this with us and is copied from his blog.
Bob's link is on the right here.

Business Continuity – Have you any Plans?

So it’s a Monday morning and you arrive at the workplace to find that not only are all the staff standing outside the business...they are in the company of Firefighters...or Environment Agency...or?

Nightmare begins!

You have no contingency, the workers have nowhere to conduct YOUR business, receive YOUR customer’s calls, take or process their requests...
Along with the building, the IT and telephony has been rendered useless. With just one fire/flood/contamination - your business and reputation has been destroyed.

What are you going to do now? What is your next action? Cry probably!

Alarmist you think? The scenarios above - whilst fairly occasional, are just three of the dangers your business faces when you are without effective resilience and business continuity planning.

What if your IT infrastructure is compromised - by security or software/hardware/systems failure?

What if you’re staff become ill with a contagious bug. Perhaps they cannot even get to the workplace due to environmental challenges such as fog, ice, snow, winds or floods. Maybe it will be transportation issues for your staff or suppliers or dispatch teams. Road closures, transport infrastructure collapse, strikes, fuel shortage or terrorism, to name just some.

Supply chain – Do your providers of services or goods have resilience? Have you got a ‘back-up’ for that little challenge? Have your fiscal affairs been risk assessed?
...and of course there are more, this thing grows legs!

That’s a little ‘cheer you up’ for your thoughts. So what are your options?

1. Do nothing...and hope!
2. Learn what can be done to reduce risk and...Implement strategy to cope or...
3. Engage professional consultants to identify professionally and help you to be
ahead of the (game) risk

Aside from the obvious, what benefits will I achieve?

1. The livelihood of you, your staff, your customers and suppliers will enjoy greater protection
2. As you tender for business growth, you can be ahead of many competitors by demonstrating within your contract negotiations, that you have resilience and have taken measures to protect their supply too
3. To satisfy audit, governance and due diligence reporting
4. You get to sleep at night!

Resource to expert advice below and a link to my poll on this subject via Linkedin

My thanks to Gareth Howell of Business Continuity UK for whom I recommend you speak with about your plans Business Continuity UK

For other global specialists-
The Resiliency Professional Network Group (Linkedin)

Linkedin Poll
http://polls.linkedin.com/p/106767/tmlzu