Best Practices
Firms often see BC planning as a one-time or as an annual event rather than an ongoing program or process integrated with corporate functions like IT operations and risk management. In addition, firms typically use common office tools such as email, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel to create and maintain plans. Using these tools can lead firms to mistakenly treat BC planning as a one-time event because the collaboration, coordination, regular maintenance, testing, and reporting capabilities are labor-intensive and ineffective. But internal and external pressures are forcing firms to take a more formal approach to BC planning, requiring more effective tools to create, maintain, test, and communicate plans.
Total Economic Impact
At one time, you might have been able to pass an internal BC audit with a few hastily prepared plans and supporting documentation. Today, whether you're a private or public entity, BC readiness is no longer just an internal concern. You must provide proof of BC readiness to multiple external parties. According to the Forrester/Disaster Recovery Journal Business Continuity Preparedness Survey, Q4 2008, almost 80% of respondents tell us that their firms have had to provide proof of BC readiness to at least one — but sometimes more — external parties in the past 12 months, including
Balanced Scorecard`
Your bill for disaster recovery preparedness can run into the millions of dollars depending on the level of continuity and the size of your environment. Since these investments are about cost avoidance and don't typically reduce the total cost of IT ownership, management is typically reluctant to fund these efforts. However, IT operations professionals constantly worry about their preparedness for threats like power outages, IT failures, and disasters. How do you persuade your management to approve the funding necessary to improve disaster recovery preparedness?