"What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens."- Benjamin Disraeli

We work with clients to ensure continuity of operations under conditions of organizational, market or environmental stress. We work with our clients using the following techniques and other tools  to ensure that their BCP is up to date, matching their current range of operations and other external dependencies e.g. suppliers and essential resources:

• influence diagrams map the inter-connections and dependencies of processes, and operations can reveal potential weak points that have arisen from changes incorporated since the BCP was last updated

• scenario testing and gap analysis against the extant BCP reveal the severity and consequences of these vulnerabilities and give some indication of the changes necessary to make the BCP more resilient.

Through the use of rational analysis and other more creative problem revealing and solutions techniques, we provide a full exploration of the current BCP’s utility against a wide range of scenarios.  From this we can report on any shortcomings, and provide an action plan for updating the BCP to ‘plug the gaps’ and provide protection from any prior unresolved weaknesses.

An organization and its operations can be viewed as a system of processes, with a complex array of internal and external dependencies. Disruption to any one of these processes may seriously affect core operations and ultimately the entire system.  As organizations evolve and operations mature, the system grows in size and complexity, so it is vital that the BCP keeps pace with this change, and it evolves to match the new system arrangements it exists to protect. The business environment and organizations are highly dynamic, a legacy BCP may prove to be completely ineffective and create unwelcome exposure

4.1. Full continuity risk assessment
Proactsys’s business continuity planning (BCP) advice provides a foundation and guides processes to maintain and recover key business functions when operations have been threatened or disrupted, in effect a blueprint for business survival. 

We assist our clients with identifying threats and risks, and reduce their potential impact through:

• understanding our clients’ key business operations

• developing a comprehensive threat and risk assessment

• devising mitigation strategies or other contingencies to ensure as near as possible normal business is quickly resumed.

We have extensive experience and expertise in helping our clients to assess their operations, and devise effective and economically optimal BCP, including an important element known as Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP), more usually meant to apply to planning for the recovery of an organization’s ICT systems following a major failure.

With the support of senior management, and using the detailed operational knowledge and experience of staff, we work with our clients through a staged process:

• We develop a deep understanding of the key operations and processes through which the organization meets its objectives, and serves its customers.  This is followed by an examination of the causes and effects of disruptions, and assessing the risk of each – an important factor here is the time criticality of the loss of one or several processes, and when normal or replacement services are implemented.

• We identify available strategies and contingencies for mitigation of or response to the impacts of service affecting incidents.  Detailed cost benefit analyses will be used as part of a systematic options appraisal, all of which must accord with the organization’s appetite for risk and the nature of their business or the markets they serve. 

• We develop the BCP, which must be an action document that drives activity.  The plan must be tested to ensure it is robust and resilient, against the full range of envisaged scenarios.  There may be iteration between this and previous stages to arrive at the optimal solution.

• Once the planning is in place, organizational climate and culture change needs to ensure that  BCP becomes an integral part of daily operations – this includes gaining senior management buy-in and support as well as establishing training for staff and ensuring BCP change impacts are embedded into future projects.

• With a plan in place there must be regular testing, review and maintenance updates of the plan to counter changes in technology, legislation or other business environment aspects.  Periodic review and testing is crucial here to ensure any response is appropriate and at the very least adequate.

4.2. BCP planning, costing and disaster recovery
We have the expertise and experience, together with the tools and templates to ensure that clients receive the most appropriate business continuity solution delivered in both a timely and cost effective manner.

Different companies vary in their willingness to accept risk or to spend money up front either to reduce risk or to help speed up recovery from impact: 

• We can assist by developing a range of alternative scenarios for consideration, with an indication of cost.

• This may include a ‘roadmap’, where the strategy may be to build up BCP capability from a basic level to more sophisticated solutions and plans.

Clearly defining a company’s mission critical activities (MCAs), the potential impact if the capability is lost, and other essential factors such as the time for recovery, allows management to consider alternative continuity strategies that will maintain MCAs at an acceptable level following a service affecting impact.

BCP must address all plausible scenarios – often the most simple, affordable solutions are best and easiest to put in place. Our BCP and disaster recovery planning is informed by a strategy that reflects constraints on the client organization, e.g. financial, cultural/political, time and available resource.
 
We can assist our clients to develop BCP that matches their operation’s dependency and risk profile, maintaining above all the need for realistic and affordable solutions. Part of the business continuity management (BCM) strategy involves understanding the client’s appetite for risk (how much risk of failure the organization is willing to tolerate), and how this can be matched by tailored risk reduction programmes and risk transfer, e.g. through insurance or outsourced service provision with exacting SLAs

4.3. Process implementation support and testing
Proactsys develops back-up and emergency processes and working instructions that will be used when a service-affecting incident occurs, and tests them in a full dress rehearsal.

The BCP is a document that drives activity and includes:

• recovery team responsibilities and contact details for staff, suppliers and customers where relevant

• detailed recovery steps and accountabilities/authorization of responsible parties, for mission critical activities

• Management processes for controlling the recovery.

It must be widely disseminated and a part of practiced incident response.

Having developed a resilient BCP we can assist with:

• ensuring the BCP is properly documented and disseminated to the relevant parts of the organization

• establishing BCP training requirements

• developing a BCP training programme

• staff training.

Business continuity management, incorporating BCP and DR, must become an integral part of the organization’s culture and operations, including full buy-in from senior management.

Once you are confident that BCP is an accepted part of normal daily operations, and that staff feel they can act in accordance with their roles in carrying out the plan, we can assist with a full dress rehearsal against a range of realistic scenarios.  This will be formally managed using a documented and approved test plan, and a fully documented report will provide an outcome based assessment on how successfully the planning was implemented, and any recommendations for changes to the planning or increased training for staff.