One of the business continuity courses offered by DRI-ANZ is the Business Continuity Management Overview course, BCOE000. The aim of the course is to transfer fundamental knowledge to attendees about BC planning and management. As a one-day course, it covers the importance, trends, planning approach, roles and responsibilities involved, giving participants a clear view of BC and its relationship with an organisation. What then is the connection with Pareto? Even if the name is unfamiliar, you’ve probably come across some version of the ’80-20’ rule that came about as a result of Pareto’s research into the Italian economy about one century ago. Here’s how it applies to this course.
A general definition of the ’80-20’ rule is that you get 80 percent of the effect or results you want by using just 20 percent of your resources. Thus 20 percent of your advertising is likely to be generating 80 percent of your sales leads, and 20 percent of your customers generate 80 percent of your business revenues. The challenge (especially in advertising) is to identify which is the right 20 percent. Pareto discovered the phenomenon when he noticed that 20 percent of families in Italy held 80 percent of the population’s wealth.
Similar benefits apply to people who need to know about business continuity and how it affects their roles in an organisation. They can get a solid grounding in the subject (corresponding to 80 per cent results) by spending one day (20 percent resources) participating in the DRI-ANZ Business Continuity Management Overview course. It’s a particularly effective way of making business continuity ingrained into your organisation, especially when done as corporate on-site training. Further courses can then be sequenced to train those who are directly involved in business continuity, following the first day of BC fundamentals and awareness for a broader audience.