IT Governance Blog on IT governance, risk management, compliance and information security.

During times of austerity it’s more challenging than ever for an organisation to meet its compliance obligations, let alone follow a best-practice standard. With a difficult and uncertain economic environment, there can be a tendency to consider compliance issues, such as Business Continuity, as an unnecessary expense and, understandably, focus resources on revenue building projects instead.

Taking such a ‘short sighted’ approach can be dangerous!

While it makes good business sense to focus on revenue building activities, organisations that simply ignore their responsibilities, where business continuity is concerned, will be playing devils-advocate.

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This August we have three fantastic offers available to help you get the most out of your business continuity programme. You may have seen one of them already so here’s a recap, along with the additional two offers:

Business Continuity Course – Offer 1:

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The benefits of implementing a business continuity management system (BCMS) are not always clear and, as a result, BCM managers often struggle to get buy-in at board level.

The obvious benefits of a business continuity management programme, such as enabling mission critical activities to recover from an incident, can be reasonably straightforward to determine and explain. However, some equally important benefits require more thorough consideration. This blog post explain these benefits: Intrinsic Benefits of Business Continuity Management.

If you want to get the most out of your business continuity management system you should attend one of our September training courses.

1. Understanding Business Continuity Management Best Practice & BS2599923 Sep 2010 – London
2. BS25999 Business Continuity Management Implementation Master Class13 – 14 Sep 2010 – London

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Business continuity management is often put on hold during times of austerity. Understanding the full benefits of a business continuity management programme is key to obtaining board-level support, appropriate funding and to ‘selling’ the concept to stakeholders.

The obvious benefits of a business continuity management programme, such as enabling mission critical activities to recover from an incident, can be reasonably straightforward to determine and explain. However, some equally important benefits require more thorough consideration;
such as:

• A clearer understanding of processes within an organisation can be obtained by undertaking a business impact analysis within a BCM programme. This enhanced understanding can assist process optimisation programmes resulting in expenditure reductions.
• The likelihood of recovery from an incident is directly related to the simplicity of processes. A business continuity management programme will assist in simplifying processes and therefore ensure that they are easier to recover in the event of a crisis.
• In many organisations rational structures may be overlooked when growth becomes the most important driver. A business continuity management programme can assist in rectifying this problem by mapping out the organisational structure. This assists in highlighting where bureaucratic and inefficient structures have developed.
• By understanding the vital records that support the mission-critical activities of an organisation, storage needs can be identified. The cost of storage can be a major drain on organisational budgets and a good business continuity management programme will assist in setting priorities.
• Identifying business risks before they happen will enable an organisation to avoid them in the first place.

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Does your organisation have an effective business continuity plan in place?

• 80% of organizations with a tried and tested business continuity plan are likely to survive a major business discontinuity; only 20% of those without a business continuity plan are likely to survive.
• Over 90% of organizations that suffer a significant data loss are not in business two years later.
• The Business Continuity Institute’s 2005 survey indicates that 30% of businesses still don’t have a business continuity plan.
• The data indicates that many of the existing plans are not comprehensive and that maintenance (testing and updating) is generally inadequate.

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Purchase the BS25999 BCMS Implementation Toolkit & Manager’s Guide before midnight on Monday (31st May 2010), and we’ll send you a free book: Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, Second Edition (Soft Cover).

BS25999 is best practice for Business Continuity Management, and this toolkit contains all the templates and tools that enable a BC manager to quickly and effectively implement a BCMS in line with BS25999. The free book is a beginner’s guide to disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC). It’s written in a question and answer format allowing the reader to easily comprehend the subject matter. FREE!

This toolkit also contains electronic copies of the following specialist guides:

• BS25999 A Pocket Guide;
• Business Continuity and BS25999: A Combined Glossary; &
• Business Continuity Management: a Manager’s Guide to BS25999 – a concise and practical guide to implementing this new benchmark for business continuity management.

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Q – What do the Ash Cloud, the Airline Strikes, the World Cup and Pandemic Swine Flu have in common?

A – They all have the ability to cripple an organisation in a very short period of time!

That is, of course, NOT including organisations which have taken the time to implement a business continuity plan in line with best practice standards, such as BS25999.

In the past month, the Ash Cloud and airline strike action have left people stranded all over the world. Going back to last year, the Swine Flu Pandemic pushed absence levels through the roof, and over the next few months the World Cup will again mean unplanned absence will rise as football supporters will go all-out to watch their country, rather than meet their contractual obligations, such as attending work.

Consequences of leaving these issues unchecked:

When your organisation can no longer meet its deadlines, or provide customers with the high quality of service they expect, you have a problem. Unplanned absence also has a bad effect on morale, putting the rest of the team under pressure, as they struggle to deal with the additional workload. Unplanned absence can occur as a result of force majeure (for example, when an airline is hit by strike action), or because of poor employee motivation and commitment.

Receive a Free World Cup Staff Absence Policy when you pre-order our latest pocket guide, Coping with Unplanned Absences.
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Purchase the BS25999 BCMS Implementation Toolkit & Manager’s Guide before the end of March, and we’ll send you a free book: Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, Second Edition (Soft Cover).

BS25999 is best practice for Business Continuity Management, and this toolkit contains all the templates and tools that enable a BC manager to quickly and effectively implement a BCMS in line with BS25999. The free book is a beginner’s guide to disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC). It’s written in a question and answer format allowing the reader to easily comprehend the subject matter. FREE!

This toolkit also contains electronic copies of the following specialist guides:
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If you’re implementing a business continuity management system (BCMS), in-line with BS25999 and want to save time and money, the BS25999 BCMS Implementation Toolkit is must-buy resource!

The BS25999 BCMS Implementation Toolkit contains document templates, tools and references that enable you to quickly and efficiently produce your own tailored versions of all the essential documents needed to become certified against BS25999.

This BS25999 BCMS Implementation Toolkit Special Offer contains electronic copies of the following specialist guides:
	BS25999 A Pocket Guide; Business Continuity and BS25999: A Combined Glossary; Business Continuity Management: a Manager’s Guide to BS25999, a concise and practical guide to implementing this new benchmark for business continuity management. FREE – Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, Second Edition (Soft Cover), when your order before midnight on Friday!

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You can even try before you buy! There is a free demo version of this toolkit available.

BS25999 is best practice for Business Continuity Management, and the BS25999 BCMS Implementation Toolkit contains all the templates and tools that enable a BC manager to quickly and effectively implement a BCMS in line with BS25999. BS25999-2:2007 specifies at clause 3.4.1.1, that the BCMS (Business Continuity Management System) must, as a minimum, contain the following documents:

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