“We’re not mature enough yet.”
“Not in the budget.”
“Priorities, we’re way too busy right now.”
“People can work from home – we’re good.”
Many companies have seemingly valid reasons to delay or defer setting up a Business Continuity Program. There are always more pressing issues. There are also perceptions, misguided or based on prior experience, that Business Continuity is expensive, intrusive, and laden with top-heavy overhead that today’s organizations – particularly early-stage – can ill afford.
The perceptions are wrong. The reasons are misguided. The risks are too great for the investment not to be of value. Here’s why!
“We’re not mature enough yet.”
Although early-stage orgs must get runway under them early, they still must manage Risk. This is even more important when seeking Series B funding and beyond. One business outage may not only cripple a company’s operation, it might be a red flag to investors that the company might not be resilient enough to take a risk on.
Many companies have long tenure, have been in business for some time, but are still operating with a relative immaturity of process. Business Continuity is essential here! Companies with fragile processes are bound to struggle when those processes are broken by unforeseen events. Having at least a rudimentary framework for switching the business to ‘contingency mode’ and keeping employees safe and productive can make up for fragile processes.
Would your organization say, “we’re too immature to have a Cyber framework”??
The key to Business Continuity for immature enterprises is to match the robustness of the program to the maturity level of the enterprise. Just as a “Business Continuity Lite” is insufficient for large, mature organizations, a comprehensive deep program is unsuitable for an early-stage or immature org. The trick is to implement a program that covers the basics without being top-heavy… or expensive.
“Not in the budget.”
Business Continuity has historically been viewed as a cost, and an exorbitant one at that. Big expense, big overhead. This is not true if done properly. Streamlined Business Continuity can be implemented for pennies on the dollar and still get significant risk reduction. Example: A global name-brand enterprise with over 8,000 employees and a market capitalization of $40B USD had agile Business Continuity, teams in twelve locations in North America and EMEA, over a hundred plans, standby Emergency Work Centers covering five major locations, Mass Emergency Notification, and conducted 16 annual exercises.
The cost? $187,000 and a team of two.
That’s not a typo.
Are the losses in revenue, customers and brand in the budget?
“Priorities, we’re way too busy right now.”
Another misconception is that Business Continuity is intrusive and distracting. That can be true… if it’s done the old way. Endless sit-downs to compose a voluminous binder – and the cover must be Code Red! – are indeed business-interrupting. Much less so is an agile approach that takes crisp terse checklists built on a common theme and helps business areas customize for their unique needs and style. Done properly, with the right lead-from-behind facilitation, Business Continuity can spring up around the org with hardly a blip in normal operations.
Think you’re busy now? Wait until the business-impacting outage, not having a playbook, never practiced and having to make it up as you go.
“People can work from home – we’re good.”
This is a whole topic unto itself. I have a 60-minute presentation that outlines the operational and people risk of relying on Work from Home as a substitute for a plan. It’s entitled “Business Continuity = Work from Home? HAHAHA”… and aptly so. Suffice it to say that WFH is an essential risk reduction strategy and Business Continuity enabler, but it does not obviate the need for an overall strategy and basic ‘choreography’ for responding to a business outage.
Hopefully this article has given you something to think about. The bottom line is that NO organization is “not ready” to reduce risk, safeguard employees, protect brand, and fulfill their promise to stakeholders.
Ready to get started? Contact us!
“Not in the budget.”
“Priorities, we’re way too busy right now.”
“People can work from home – we’re good.”
Many companies have seemingly valid reasons to delay or defer setting up a Business Continuity Program. There are always more pressing issues. There are also perceptions, misguided or based on prior experience, that Business Continuity is expensive, intrusive, and laden with top-heavy overhead that today’s organizations – particularly early-stage – can ill afford.
The perceptions are wrong. The reasons are misguided. The risks are too great for the investment not to be of value. Here’s why!
“We’re not mature enough yet.”
Although early-stage orgs must get runway under them early, they still must manage Risk. This is even more important when seeking Series B funding and beyond. One business outage may not only cripple a company’s operation, it might be a red flag to investors that the company might not be resilient enough to take a risk on.
Many companies have long tenure, have been in business for some time, but are still operating with a relative immaturity of process. Business Continuity is essential here! Companies with fragile processes are bound to struggle when those processes are broken by unforeseen events. Having at least a rudimentary framework for switching the business to ‘contingency mode’ and keeping employees safe and productive can make up for fragile processes.
Would your organization say, “we’re too immature to have a Cyber framework”??
The key to Business Continuity for immature enterprises is to match the robustness of the program to the maturity level of the enterprise. Just as a “Business Continuity Lite” is insufficient for large, mature organizations, a comprehensive deep program is unsuitable for an early-stage or immature org. The trick is to implement a program that covers the basics without being top-heavy… or expensive.
“Not in the budget.”
Business Continuity has historically been viewed as a cost, and an exorbitant one at that. Big expense, big overhead. This is not true if done properly. Streamlined Business Continuity can be implemented for pennies on the dollar and still get significant risk reduction. Example: A global name-brand enterprise with over 8,000 employees and a market capitalization of $40B USD had agile Business Continuity, teams in twelve locations in North America and EMEA, over a hundred plans, standby Emergency Work Centers covering five major locations, Mass Emergency Notification, and conducted 16 annual exercises.
The cost? $187,000 and a team of two.
That’s not a typo.
Are the losses in revenue, customers and brand in the budget?
“Priorities, we’re way too busy right now.”
Another misconception is that Business Continuity is intrusive and distracting. That can be true… if it’s done the old way. Endless sit-downs to compose a voluminous binder – and the cover must be Code Red! – are indeed business-interrupting. Much less so is an agile approach that takes crisp terse checklists built on a common theme and helps business areas customize for their unique needs and style. Done properly, with the right lead-from-behind facilitation, Business Continuity can spring up around the org with hardly a blip in normal operations.
Think you’re busy now? Wait until the business-impacting outage, not having a playbook, never practiced and having to make it up as you go.
“People can work from home – we’re good.”
This is a whole topic unto itself. I have a 60-minute presentation that outlines the operational and people risk of relying on Work from Home as a substitute for a plan. It’s entitled “Business Continuity = Work from Home? HAHAHA”… and aptly so. Suffice it to say that WFH is an essential risk reduction strategy and Business Continuity enabler, but it does not obviate the need for an overall strategy and basic ‘choreography’ for responding to a business outage.
Hopefully this article has given you something to think about. The bottom line is that NO organization is “not ready” to reduce risk, safeguard employees, protect brand, and fulfill their promise to stakeholders.
Ready to get started? Contact us!