Business Continuity Management – Delegating Roles & Responsibilities
Business continuity management goes through numerous iterations in a constant effort to make enterprises more resilient. Adopting such a strategy requires continuous and in depth monitoring that goes beyond just the successful implementation of the BCM lifecycle.
Business continuity management begins with a project management approach that focuses primarily on deploying the BCM lifecycle in the organization. After implementation, business continuity management gets gradually ingrained into the enterprise’s operational framework through a program management approach. This phase is focused on keeping response strategies up to date through regular upgrades, enhancements and the introduction of new features and functionalities.
The availability of able personnel with the necessary skills and expertise is crucial while deploying a business continuity and disaster recovery plan intended to safeguard mission critical operations that are crucial to a company’s revenue cycles. Despite the growing presence of automation and machine learning capabilities in present day systems, human intervention is still required to carry out key tasks and activities.
Business continuity management activities can be broadly categorized into the following:
- Delegating roles and responsibilities
- Deploying a business continuity management module
- Overseeing the project’s progress through the entire BCM life cycle
- Updating the plan regularly to incorporate new constraints and challenges
- Archiving all activities executed under the Business Continuity Management plan
Delegation of roles and responsibilities
The BCM policy provides organizations with a blueprint for designing emergency profiles for employee personnel. Capable individuals who can handle the pressures and challenges that come with executing a BCDR plan must be allocated to these profiles. Prior experience is desirable while deciding on a suitable candidate for the role, although not mandatory.
Meeting the business continuity management plan’s staffing requirements is of prime importance. This is more feasible in industries that are heavy on regulatory norms and compliance such as banking, where successfully deploying a business continuity management module is closely linked to achieving the company’s commercial objectives.
Response strategies start gaining structural definition during this phase. The required skill sets for designing and executing a business continuity plan need not necessarily overlap. The manner in which the boundaries between these two roles are demarcated depends mainly on the type of business continuity plan that is being designed and executed.
However, there must be coordination between these two groups to facilitate the development of a holistic BCM plan. Personnel involved in carrying out various tasks and activities are better acquainted with the ground realities during a crisis situation and can gauge how feasible a plan might be. On the other hand, executives responsible for designing the plan need to make sure that the manner in which plans are implemented are in line with the organization’s resiliency objectives. Emergency teams must also ensure a state of readiness so that the appropriate response can be triggered as soon as an incident crosses the threshold, regardless of when that event occurs.
Procedural Framework
Ensuring that the business continuity management module serves the purpose requires the direct involvement of an executive from the management or leadership teams. This is particularly important to make sure that business continuity management doesn’t get sidelined in the broader scheme of organizational goals and objectives.
A manager takes responsibility for supervising the entire business continuity framework. The amount of time required for this role depends largely on the nature, size and complexity of business operations carried out by the organization.
Major corporations with a huge headcount elect more personnel, especially for the following:
- Performing tests, drills or exercises
- Gathering data
- Editing, reviewing and updating documents
- Executing business continuity plans
- Coordinating activities that require interaction between different teams, departments and divisions
Additional committees can also be formed to address specific areas such as:
- Advisory Board – Providing strategic direction to emergency teams and ensuring the alignment of the overall plan with the organization’s resiliency objectives
- Business Continuity – Executing specific segments of the business continuity plan and also documenting the tasks and activities that were carried out
- Incident Response – Addressing communication issues while leveraging coordinated business continuity activities that are collectively implemented by multiple teams. Gathering relevant data based on which the requirements for knowledge transfer and awareness drills can be outlined
Execution Strategy
The skills and expertise of emergency personnel can be mapped to the business continuity plan’s requirements through a periodic training schedule. The options for imparting knowledge include hands on exposure, mobile apps and online platforms. Training objectives can also be outsourced to specialized third party vendors.
Although certification does not guarantee that a plan will achieve the desired business continuity objectives, these credentials generate a lot of mileage in the market and can favorably influence customers’ perception of the organization.
Many companies even incorporate their business continuity plans into their mainstream commercial goals and objectives. Prospective candidates with a business continuity background are given preference while hiring. The organization’s resiliency targets are broken down to the department, team and individual level and are taken into consideration during performance appraisals.
Takeaways and Evaluation
- Employees are made familiar with the organization’s business continuity goals and objectives through initiatives that create awareness and positively influence organizational culture.
- Emergency profiles are created that are accountable for the successful completion of specific tasks and activities.
- These profiles are incorporated into mainstream job descriptions.
- The emergency profiles are assigned to individuals who are apt for the role.
- Gaps in skills and expertise are bridged through comprehensive and regular training programs.
- Individual capabilities are reviewed every year as part of the appraisal cycle.
- The business continuity manager is made primarily responsible for achieving various goals and objectives.
- The enterprise’s business continuity management module is audited periodically for improvements and adherence to guidelines.
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