Business Continuity – Page 2

Getting the Most Out of Business Continuity Consulting

As a competent, business continuity manager, does it make sense for you to consider bringing in external resources in business continuity consulting? The short answer is “maybe”. There are circumstances where external consultants can add significant value, without undermining your good standing as an employee. In fact, correctly selected and used, such consultants can even make you look even better! As with other decisions about using service providers, it comes down to knowing what your organization needs and checking that the provider in question can supply to meet those needs. Read more

2016-05-30T12:23:11+10:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

Business Continuity without Leaders

Is business continuity or an organisation without a leader even thinkable? Given all the business literature devoted to leadership, the idea might seem bizarre. Whether we’re talking about authoritarian, inspirational, relational, visionary or any other kind of leader, we generally expect to see a “big boss” at the top of the organisational tree. Business continuity would appear to be a similar case. Somebody needs to drive the thinking, planning and management to ensure that an enterprise does not suffer business interruption. So would it surprise you to know that organisations with high performance and continuity can – in fact, sometimes should – run without leaders? Examples of completely leaderless organisations that work well and run without breakdown can be found in a variety of different professional sectors. Morning Star is one example: this $700 million enterprise processes tomato products, has no bosses and authorises employees to spend company money and Read more

2016-05-30T12:18:13+10:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

Reinforcing Business Continuity in Supply Chains

For many enterprises, the supply chain has become the centre of the universe. More important than cool branding, funky product features or any other individual aspect, success is determined by how well an enterprise manages to supply its market with the right product in the right place at the right time and at the right cost. Everything revolves around getting the supply chain right. Complexity means challenges for business continuity, especially as doing better in one area may penalise performance in another. However, business continuity must hold up overall. Some top performers have shown how two aspects in particular can make the difference. Read more

2016-05-26T11:32:31+10:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

Business Psychology for Business Continuity

Smart business continuity managers, like other smart people, know that shamelessly applying good ideas to meet objectives is an efficient way of moving forwards, whether the good idea was theirs in the first place or somebody else’s. With this in mind, here are some interesting ideas from a discussion on the challenges of effective cybersecurity, which could equally well apply to the propagation of business continuity. Read more

2016-04-26T12:17:20+10:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

Like It or Not, Third Party Risk Affects Your Business Continuity

Outsourcing and third party suppliers were highly fashionable a few years ago. Now the enthusiasm is somewhat tempered by a number of realisations. Increased risk and in some cases outright failure have incited enterprises to take a closer look at third party impacts on business continuity. Recent figures from auditing and consulting company Deloitte in the UK state that 87% of organisations surveyed have suffered business disruption due to third parties, whether from loss of data, failure to deliver on time, or other causes. Confidence in managing third party risk was low to moderate for over 94%, yet over 73% thought third parties would be critical to their business in the coming year. So how big are the risks and what are the solutions? Read more

2016-04-26T12:05:20+10:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

The Risks of Business Continuity on the Rebound

When natural dangers and disasters are few and far between in your own country, it may come as a surprise to know how high the levels of risk are in other parts of the world. When natural catastrophes come with the territory, the only solution is to be able to rebound from them. Some nations are better equipped to do this than others. From a business perspective, there is also a correlation between lower cost providers and less resilience. In other words, if you are selecting foreign suppliers on the basis of lower prices, it pays to check the exposure of the supplier’s country to hazards that could hinder the supplier’s capability to provide goods or services. Read more

2016-03-31T17:08:53+11:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

The Role of Microservices in Business Continuity

In IT, the days of monolithic computer applications are numbered. The new approach is to develop microservices, smaller applications that can be linked together to build a larger entity, these smaller apps being swapped in and out as required. Those of you who already met or worked with service-oriented architectures (SOA) will see similarities between this earlier model and today’s version. Web SOAP (simple object access protocol) services are yet another version. They are all based on the notion of calling up loosely coupled entities to accomplish different results, and – possibly – go elsewhere for those results, if the first entity is out of action. With a little broader thinking, these microservices could open the door to other advances in business continuity too. Read more

2016-03-29T16:23:27+11:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

Business Continuity Awareness Week, May 16, 2016 – More than Just Happy Returns?

For Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) aficionados, the first piece of news is that BCAW 2016 won’t be happening in March, as in previous years, but in May. To be precise, BCAW 2016 will run from the 16th to the 20th of May, with a calendar of different events and a particular theme: return on investment for business continuity. As BCAW organisers point out, organisations can and should look beyond the advantages if a disruption occurs, to add in positive impacts on winning sales, reducing insurance premiums, and so on. Yet there may be a possibility to go further still. Read more

2016-03-22T10:52:29+11:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

Pros and Cons of Business Continuity in the Cloud

For many, the cloud represents business continuity. After all, it’s reputed to be scalable, secure and resilient, as well as being affordable, allowing organisations to start and stop systems and store and delete data at will. But what if your cloud provider was not the perfect embodiment of these sterling qualities? Before you commit to the cloud for your own business continuity, it may be wise to check the following points. Read more

2016-02-29T12:40:43+11:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|

Is Business Continuity Ready for Machine Learning?

Russian author Tolstoy wrote that every happy family looks alike, yet every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Translated into a business continuity context, the message is that enterprises and organisations that experience no disruptions to business have often identified the same core set of things to do properly – and which they do indeed do properly. Those whose operations falter or grind to a halt have neglected an essential aspect. However, the nature of that aspect may differ from one enterprise to another, or even within the same enterprise (for successive disruptions). There may be many points to be checked to avoid business discontinuity. Could machine learning speed the process and help to spot business continuity failures before they happen? Read more

2016-02-16T11:52:55+11:00By Dri-ANZ|Business Continuity|