By assigning ongoing responsibility and budgets for maintaining and exercising business continuity plans, and ensuring an appropriate level of employee training and awareness, organizations can embed business continuity into their day-to-day operations. To address the emerging threat of an avian flu pandemic, organizations must first assess the ability of existing plans to cope with a significant disruption to the workforce. Once any necessary updates have been made, an individual (usually the business continuity coordinator) should be assigned to track developments with all emerging threats, and to determine any further plan updates that may be required.
A further mistake can arise from a lack of coordination in the ongoing activities that support business continuity. It is revealing to ask companies what they spend on business continuity. Often, the response will be -- in the absence of a specific project -- little or nothing at all. However, data backup and storage, for example, are daily activities, and most businesses maintain a redundant network. These are all business continuity-related activities, but are not often thought about in that way. To change this, senior management needs to move the issue of business continuity on to their permanent agenda. They must ensure that they can achieve an integrated view of all the activities and processes taking place within the business that relate to and support "business-as-usual" operations in the face of unexpected and adverse events.
Once this vision is achieved, a communications plan needs to be enacted that can keep various stakeholders informed of the measures taken, as well as measures proposed. It is crucial that investors feel their investment is protected and that all necessary activities are in hand -- with the full and focused attention of senior management -- to manage and mitigate the risk created by a global pandemic. Otherwise, the business impact of failing to prepare, plan and communicate effectively could be a disaster.
Martin Byrne is the Accenture business continuity practice lead in Europe, while Robert Dyson has the same role in the Americas. They can be reached at martin.byrne@accenture.com and href="mailto:robert.w.dyson@accenture.com>robert.w.dyson@accenture.com, respectively.