Business continuity not receiving necessary support
Some things you know you have to do — but you just don’t do them (excercise, eat helathy food, etc.); it is the same with business contuity management: Companies know they should do it, but many do not
A survey carried out by Wayne, Pennsylvania-based SunGard Availability Services reveals that almost half of U.K. businesses are struggling to embed business continuity management (BCM) into their organisation’s culture. Fifty-six percent of respondents believe that their BCM policy is generally “good,” and 44 percent recognized that they were failing to entrench it into the fabric of their organization, but not one of the 86 cross-sector organisations that responded to the online poll posted by SunGard Availability Services was found to be currently fully compliant with BS 25999, the new British Standard for BCM which is set to launch in September 2007.
This suggests that business continuity (BC) planning in the United Kingdom is still not receiving the necessary input and support that it requires at the highest level of the organization. It also indicates that employees are currently not aware of the details of their organization’s BC plans and what is expected of them following a business disruption. The main shortcomings among respondents were poor testing procedures and failure to establish BC management within the culture of the organisation:
* 44 percent of respondents admitted that failure to entrench BCM into the organisation’s culture was a major weakness
* 41 per cent of respondents felt that their BC plans are compromised by inadequate testing and review processes
The survey highlighted weaknesses in certain aspects of BCM that need to be addressed by organizations looking to gain BS 25999 certification, but we note that the overall picture did offer some encouragement:
* 56 percent of respondents believed their BC policy to be generally good
* 23 percent of directors and senior managers now take an interest in BCM
