Feature Business Continuity Read more online at www.securitymattersmagazine.com
Continuity
of purpose
When COVID-19 struck, companies
were taken by surprise at the pace with
which the pandemic spread across the
globe and the depth of its impact. For
business continuity professionals,
observes David Thorp, the situation
either became the pedestal moment or
resulted in doors being slammed shut
PRIOR TO the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic, business
continuity functions were a vital part of
the organisation for management to
turn to when an incident occurred. That
function was able to assist with crisis
response and the return to normal
operations. Traditionally, the function
had a purely operational facet and was
rarely brought to the table to assist with
strategic decision-making.
Although many business continuity
managers ensured their host business
had robust pandemic plans in place to
address COVID-19’s operational impact,
the global scale of the crisis and its
unpredictable path caused Boardrooms
to adopt a ‘closed door’-style approach
in terms of the response, particularly so
in the initial phase.
For some organisations, this meant
that management teams disregarded
comprehensive business impact analyses
and pandemic plans at the start of the
crisis in a determined bid to ensure the
strategic side was fit for purpose. In
turn, some business continuity-focused
professionals felt that they were
sidelined in the initial response phase.
The Business Continuity Institute’s
(BCI) report entitled ‘Coronavirus – A
Pandemic Response’ highlighted this to
be a major cause of concern among
business continuity professionals. Half
(49.8%, to be exact) of those surveyed
were only engaged in their organisation’s
response in February last year or later,
more than a month after COVID-19
had become mainstream news.
Many such professionals considered
this to be too late. While Boards were
leading the strategic response, the
former felt that business continuity
should have had some involvement at
the beginning of the crisis, not least so
that strategic decisions could be made
based on operational plans.
Crucial element
COVID-19 has prompted Boardrooms
and senior executives to view business
continuity as a crucial element of the
resilience jigsaw. The discipline had
exhibited a lack of representation at the
Boardroom and/or senior management
levels. BCI research reveals that business
continuity was frequently ‘parcelled’
under risk, Human Resources, IT or
operations and had become subservient
to the discipline to which it reported.
According to our survey, the Chief
Risk Officer (CRO) is the position to
which most business continuity
professionals report. Due to the wide-ranging
nature of the CRO’s work, that
transacted by the business continuity
function itself is often not afforded the
priority in the Boardroom its
practitioners feel it merits. This meant
that Boards/executive teams frequently
disregarded business continuity plans
when the strategic goalposts moved at
the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
COVID-19 has prompted Boardrooms and senior executives to
view business continuity as a crucial part of the resilience
jigsaw. The discipline had exhibited a lack of representation at
the Boardroom and/or senior management levels
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