Why Business Continuity Software Matters

Introduction

At almost every Business Continuity conference or convention I attend the question over why we need software to support Business Continuity Management will undoubtedly come up. As a vendor in this domain I not only believe that software has a role to play but I am passionate that it is required by any organization looking to maintain an efficient and effective Business Continuity process.

Cutting the Plan, a thousand different ways

When I first see a plan the question at the back of my mind is: “will this be of any help during an incident”? Many plans are understandably structured along organisational boundaries as this is the most appropriate structure for gathering BC information. But if an incident occurs is it likely to respect your organisations boundaries? If a location were made unavailable or a key supplier to go out of business does a departmental recovery plan help in these circumstances? Different types of incident require different types of plan and this cannot be delivered in a cost effective manner by a manual process. With software you can generate all of these types of plan from the same source information.

Want a Better Plan, Get a Better Process

During an incident you need to be confident in the information contained within your plan. With a manual process, you can only state that the data was valid at the point of preparation. As we all know an incident will occur at the very worst time possible, not when our freshly developed plans are up to date. A manual audit can help but the cost is often prohibitively high. Software can quickly help to identify incomplete and out of date information and therefore provide a measure of plan quality. Afterall, your plan is only as good as the information you used to generate it. A plan needs to be a living document which is updated as new information becomes available. Your plan should never be out of date other wise you materially risk your recovery process.

Conclusion

Software isn’t a replacement for business continuity practitioners and the expertise and experience which they provide. Softwares key strength is its ability to improve your existing process of delivering, maintaining and auditing your business continuity plan. Business Continuity process support is the key task of any software solution and allows wide dispersal of BC responsibities within your organisation. This frees up practitioners from the mundane task of data gathering and maintenance and allows them to focus on addressing the continuity risks within an organisation. As we like to say at Texonet; Want a better plan, get a better process.

Paul James, Head of Software Services, Texonet Ltd.