BCP is NOT Revenue Producing

Dear BC/DR Planning Colleague:

One of the biggest disservices to your organization is giving the BCP lip service. Yet, as the economy continues to falter, organizations are doing just that.

As they concern themselves with short-term profits, they lay off full-time personnel and divert other staff to revenue-producing jobs, often overlooking long-term planning, such as continuity management. While they know strategic risk management is important, other seemly more urgent tasks vie for their attention, diverting limited resources they may have.

Some may even begin the process, buy a planning template or say they have a plan - but the plan is in actually in someone's head. Or the template sits on the shelf gathering dust, with the "hope strategy."

These managers are fooling themselves and are risking their business's ultimate recoverability from a disruption, says Tom Abruzzo, our BCM practice consulting leader. Their underlying rationalizations are: why should I assign scarce resources to plan for something that may never happen; and, I'd rather hope that nothing will happen.

In his ongoing observations on planning, his April tip is: Avoid Falling Into the Trap of Giving Your Plan Lip Service

"Every day I see companies that say they have a plan," Abruzzo continues, "but in reality they disregard developing one for the sake of the bottom line." And these "plans," if they exist, are frequently outdated - based on obsolete technology or former personnel - unfamiliar to employees or key vendors, and untested in real-world practicality.

The bottom line is that simply giving a BCP lip service is a risk to your business. Is it a risk you're willing to take? Tom's favorite quote on this subject is, "the only thing more difficult than 'planning' will be explaining why you didn't."

We hope this has been of some assistance to your BC/DR planning. You can speak with Tom directly about individual planning for your firm at 1-800-252-4080 or tabruzzo@tampsystems.com.