Resiliency Domain Expertise
Given the extreme complexity of today’s business processes, a traditional disjointed approach to preparedness planning is no longer viable. Our integrated approach utilizes our expertise in the following domains to develop a cohesive, enterprise-wide, resiliency management program:
Business Continuity Planning (BCP)
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts to business operations that those threats might cause. It provides a framework for building organizational resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its stakeholders, reputation, brand, and value-creating activities. It involves managing the recovery or continuation of business activities in the event of a business disruption, and management of the overall program through training, exercises, and reviews, to ensure the plan stays current and up to date.
IT Disaster Recovery (DR)
IT Disaster Recovery (DR) is the ability of an organization to respond to a disaster or an interruption in services by implementing a disaster recovery plan to stabilize and restore the information technology and telecommunication services that support the organization's critical functions.
Continuity of Operations (COOP)
Generally speaking, Continuity of Operations (COOP) refers to the collective preparedness planning activities otherwise known as disaster recovery and business continuity. More specifically, it is the term used primarily by agencies of US Federal Government to describe a wide range of contingencies designed to ensure that these agencies would be able to continue operating following disruptive events.
Workforce Continuity Planning
Workforce continuity refers to the ability of an organization to provide support for its personnel and their families before, during, and after a business continuity event, to ensure a viable workforce. This involves planning for potential psychological responses, occupational health and employee assistance programs, and employee communications. Pandemic Planning is considered a special case of workforce continuity planning where the disruptive event is some type of biological pandemic.
Crisis Management
The process by which an organization manages the wider impact of a business continuity event until it is either under control or contained without impact to the organization, or the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is invoked as a part of the Crisis Management process. The overall coordination of an organization's response to a crisis, in an effective, timely manner, with the goal of avoiding or minimizing damage to the organization's ability to operate. The process responsible for managing the wider implications of business continuity such as managing communications, media relations, shareholder confidence, etc. Crisis Management process may decide when to formally invoke an organization’s Business Continuity Plan.
Crisis Communications
A crisis is considered the occurrence and/or perception of the occurrence of an event, which, if not handled in an appropriate manner, could impact an organization's business operations, staff, shareholder value, stakeholders, brand, reputation, profitability, and/or strategic/business goals. In today’s age of instantaneous news distribution (via formal and informal channels; through traditional media and social media; wanted or unwanted), crisis communications planning has become a critical component of any organization’s preparedness planning and resiliency activities. Proper, timely, accurate, controlled, and effective communications to all stakeholders (internal and external) during crisis does not happen by chance; it requires a well designed and practiced strategy and solution.
Emergency Mass Notification
During business disruptive events and ensuing crisis, prompt notification of an organization’s personnel and stakeholders is critical. Traditional manual methods (e.g., telephone call trees) are slow, utilize inaccurate and stale information, and are unsuitable for notifying large populations. The primary goal of an automated emergency mass notification solution is to provide rapid and consistent notification to all relevant subsets (small and large) of personnel and stakeholders (internal and external) anywhere, at any time, and on any device. Properly architected and implemented, modern mass notification solutions can enable an organization to rapidly notify a wide range of entities from small teams to the entire employee population.
Supply Chain Resiliency Planning
In today’s economy, an ever increasing portion of most organizations’ business operations is driven by a highly complex, global, and long supply chain. A supply chain that is ever more prone to natural and man-made, as well as intentional and accidental disruptions. Therefore, the importance and the visibility of continuity and resiliency of one’s supply chain has dramatically increased. A carefully designed supply chain resiliency planning framework, and associated processes and tools, will enable organizations to seamlessly integrate their traditional business continuity planning activities with their existing supply chain management practices. The resulting supply chain resiliency planning activities, once implemented and adopted across the enterprise, will improve its resiliency posture and reduce its operational risks.
Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)
Organizations, large and small, have always had to manage risk, as their business survival depends on it. Enterprises, however, are under increasing pressure to adapt a more structured approach to risk management. Some of the driving forces for such pressures are more complex business processes, more dynamic business environment, wider distribution of business operations, increased external governance mandates, and ever changing threats. In such environments, risks managed in silos will result in business mishaps as the dependencies and interrelationships between risks across the enterprise are not visible, and therefore, not considered. Modern Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is an overarching approach for risk management, which typically involves identifying particular events or circumstances relevant to the organization's objectives, assessing them in terms of likelihood and magnitude of impact, determining a response strategy, and monitoring progress. By identifying and proactively addressing risks and opportunities, business enterprises protect and create value for their stakeholders, including owners, employees, customers, regulators, and society overall. (ERM). Operations Risk Management (ORM), which includes all preparedness planning activities of the organization, is a significant subset of ERM.
Please contact us for learn more about our resiliency expertise and how we might be able to assist you in your preparedness planning activities, and to increase your organization’s operational resilience.