Business Continuity in an Era of Uncertainty:The Do's and Dont's

Hello everyone and welcome to this session where I'd like to share with y'all my hands-on experience when it comes to struggles organizations face in keeping up with continuity of business especially when faced with Crisis.

March 14 2024 is a date that resonates with most people in West Africa it is the day when the water cable was cut off which affected data and voice services across most West African countries, disrupting business and leaving a pile load of incidents on several Manage Engines even in big corporations, to quantify the financial and reputational damage caused will be a topic for another day but what I want to point out is that organizations that did proper risk assessment and business continuity planning were able to resist the impact of that incident cause they had alternate arrangements in place and did proper assessment of all vendors and 3rd parties. That brings us to the question what is business continuity ???

Business continuity encompasses planning and forecasting to ensure continuity of critical business processes no matter the disruptions, therefore it entails doing a proper risk assessment across all departments within the organization, conducting a proper Business Impact Analysis to first identify the critical business processes and assessing the impact of disruptions on those processes, coming up with strategies and solutions to recover the critical functions when faced by disruptions, having a documented plans and procedures as to what step each person needs to take when crisis happen additionally the most important aspect that people mostly overlook is the exercise and testing which seeks to validate the effectiveness of our arrangements to see if they are actionable and are continually suitable for your organization.

I'd like to buttress my last point, one too many times I have seen organizations that have arrangements in place but don't want to exercise those arrangements and that is a very sickening ideology, it is because crises are spontaneous situations where our thoughts and actions are all over the place so if there are not laid down rehearsed scenarios we may struggle when the crisis hit and that's why I have always been preaching about doing a proper failover test to ascertain our disaster readiness and recovery, doing a proper fire drill to ensure everyone in the building is at the muster point after the alarm and within the stipulated time, also do a formal call tree to give assurances to you as to how everyone within the organization will respond when a crisis hit and also exercise your business continuity plan to ensure everyone knows their role and channels of communications are validated.

Most organizations make the mistake of thinking Business continuity is the Job of the BC manager and top management am sorry to disappoint you that Business continuity is everyone's job. All employees have to be fully involved and have the necessary level of buy-in, Top management/Board has to show necessary leadership and commitment not just by committing financial resources to the course but by also committing all necessary resources and chain of command to ensure a smooth functioning Business continuity within the organization.

Lastly, I'd like to say with an efficient Business continuity in place. Financial and reputational damage to organizations is minimized, the meantime to contain incidences is greatly reduced, and employees work with greater confidence cause the job space is safe. Organizations continue to witness significant business growth no matter the socio-economic situation.

Watch out this space for more eye-catching content on how we can help you grow and navigate the ever-unpredictable and risky space in which you and your organization operate.✌️✌️✌️✌️