Disruption & Resilience: The 2010 Business Continuity Management Survey


Written by Phil on March 25, 2010 in Business Continuity, survey.

The UK-based Chartered Management Institute has published Disruption & Resilience: The 2010 Business Continuity Management Survey.

Christina Scott, Director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, observes “…this year’s report is encouraging in that the number of small organisations and charity/not for profit organisations with business continuity plans has increased. Despite the increasing economic pressure, more senior managers in those organisations which do plan can see the importance of preparing for possible disruption caused by the commonest kinds of hazard in the National Risk Register.

“Those who have had to activate their business continuity plans believe that they had been effective in reducing the impact of disruption. This report also shows the benefits of an all-hazards approach to business continuity planning. For the first time, disruption to Information Technology has been supplanted by extreme weather as the most persistent disruptive challenge that organisations have faced. The increased risks of disruption by severe – not just extreme cold – weather will be one of the features of the next update of the National Risk Register.

“Economic pressures will mean that businesses of all sizes need to consider carefully their investment in security and resilience. Business Continuity Management remains a cost-effective approach, particularly when allied to better informed risk assessment. I hope that all businesses will consider this report carefully, together with the guidance in the British Standard (BS 25999) and the National Risk Register, in deciding on their continued investment in effective business continuity planning.”

Key Findings

  • Adoption of business continuity management: the number of organisations with specific business continuity plans covering their operations has fallen slightly to 49 per cent, compared to 52 per cent in 2009.
  • The impact of extreme weather: the most common disruption to hit organisations over the past year was extreme weather, which was identified as a disruption to 58 per cent of organisations – up from 25 per cent in 2009. It replaced IT disruption as the top disruption for the first time in this research series’ history. In particular, the snowfall in December 2009 and January 2010 affected 93 per cent of organisations.
  • The impact of swine flu: concerns about the potential impact of swine flu were not, in the event, borne out over the past year. While 56 per cent of organisations reported disruption as a result of swine flu, only 3 per cent described the disruption as ‘significant’.
  • Reducing disruption: 79 per cent of managers who had activated their business continuity plans in the past twelve months agreed that it effectively reduces the impact of disruption. This once again emphasises the importance of using BCM to minimise disruption.
  • Remote working: around half of respondents (54 per cent) report that they could continue to work to a great extent by working remotely in the event of a disruption. Smaller organisations continue to remain in a weaker position to support remote working.
  • Drivers of BCM: corporate governance remains the biggest driver for organisations implementing BCM, yet it has dropped from the 2009 level (47 per cent in 2009 to 38 per cent in 2010). Commercial drivers of BCM remain prominent with demands from existing customers (31 per cent) and potential customers (21 per cent) acting as drivers. Central government (21 per cent) and public sector procurement contracts (16 per cent) continue to play an important role.
  • BS 25999: 41 per cent of respondents who have business continuity plans are aware of BS 25999, the British Standard for Business Continuity. Of the organisations with a specific business continuity plan only 14 per cent use the standard to evaluate it.
  • Guidance: overall 28 per cent of respondents were aware of the guidance on business continuity management provided by their local authority or Local Resilience Forum. The most commonly used sources of information on BCM were professional bodies (33 per cent) and internal sources (28 per cent).
  • BCM budgets: only around a quarter of managers said they had a dedicated budget (27 per cent) while around half (48 per cent) reported that they do not. A quarter did not know. It does not appear that the recession has resulted in extensive budget cuts.
  • Responsibility for BCM: Human Resource departments are now the most commonly involved internal stakeholder in BCM alongside IT teams having jumped from 63 per cent in 2009 to 72 per cent in 2010. This suggests an increasing recognition that people matter in business continuity planning – a perspective CMI and the Cabinet Office strongly support.

Contents

Foreword

Executive summary

  1. What is Business Continuity Management?
  2. The extent of Business Continuity Management
  3. Understanding risks and potential disruption
  4. Pandemic preparedness – lessons from swine flu
  5. Effectiveness of Business Continuity Management
  6. Drivers of Business Continuity Management
  7. Building resilience
  8. Recommendations
  9. Help and advice

Appendix A – sector statistics

Appendix B – respondent profile 2010

Acknowledgements

See Disruption & Resilience: The 2010 Business Continuity Management Survey by Patrick Woodman and Paul Hutchings.

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