Business continuity, don't forget the people!

The latest 'Business Continuity Management' survey from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) showed that "inanimate objects" such as IT equipment, continued to dominate business continuity plans, despite organisations being concerned about losing people and skills.

Loss of people was seen as one of the most disastrous problems likely to affect organisations, yet just over half (51%) had bothered to cater for such disruption in their continuity plans.

This shortcoming was highlighted by a section of the study which asked about a potential influenza pandemic. The CMI said this aspect of its research in particular highlighted "worrying signs of inactivity and complacency".

For example, almost all (92%) of respondents said they would suffer disruption caused by higher levels of absenteeism and illness in an influenza pandemic, yet the majority (83%) did not have robust plans to cope with such absence.

Overall, the number of organisations with a business continuity plan covering critical business activities was just 49%, slightly down on last year's figure of 51%. The results were worse for small organisations (under 50 employees), of which only 40% had a plan in place.

Plans rehearsed?

The research also showed that businesses were failing to rehearse plans as often as they should, with only 37% of those with plans testing them at least once a year, compared to 52% per cent in 2005.

This, said the CMI, was made more worrying by the fact that where rehearsals had taken place, the majority (79%) had revealed shortcomings in their plans.

Only one in 10 with business continuity plans shared them with suppliers and shareholders, while just one in 5 communicated this information to customers - despite being cited as a key driver for creating a plan in the first place.

Also, only 7% required all suppliers to have a continuity plan, with one third (37%) of organisations requiring only "business-critical suppliers" to have plans. Of those requiring suppliers to have a continuity plan, 62% asked for a statement from the supplier in question, while 37% took the more active step of actually examining the plan.

National standards

Jo Causon, director of marketing and corporate affairs at the CMI commented: "We are now in the seventh year of conducting this research and it is disappointing to see that organisations still fail to manage business continuity effectively.

"There appears to be a mismatch between perception of the need for business continuity and the reality of little action to prepare and plan."

Only 35% of organisations used some form of standards to evaluate or benchmark their business continuity plans. Of those that identified a specific standard, 25% used BSI/ISO 17799, 8% used PAS 56 and 4% used ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library). Only 34% were aware that the BSI was developing a British Standard for business continuity management.

John Sharp, policy and development director of the Continuity Forum said: "This research highlights the need for organisations to benchmark and assess their business continuity management processes against nationally-recognised standards and frameworks so that any readjustments can be made and potential room for error is minimised."

The full report can be downloaded from the CMI's website - see link above/right.