Business Continuity management (BCM) has
become a very important aspect of good corporate governance and has become a
part of best practice recommendations in various countries. However, in Africa, BCM is still in its infancy, and is nonexistent
in a few African countries.
It is crucial to separate Africa
from the rest of the world because the continent has its unique set of
challenges that could disrupt business at any time. Think of draught, poor supply
chain infrastructure, political instability, bureaucracy and industrial actions.
Furthermore, power disruption and pandemics such as HIV/AIDS also have impacts
on workers, is a real concern in Africa.
Many organisation leave BCM until a crisis.
BCM is simply the ability to maintain operations and services during a
disruptive event. It provides a framework for building organisational
resilience with the capacity for an effective response that safeguards the
interest of key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities.
Remember the Blackberry outage in October
2011? That is a good example of poor Business Continuity Management. It appears
that the most recent service outage will no doubt have a long term impact on
Research in Motion (RIM). The poor crisis response contributed to the drop of
its Smartphone market share from 19% year earlier to 12% in 2011.
The lack of BCM is not a story about Africa
unwilling to follow the rest of the world, but the story of how Africa lacks
awareness, leadership and standardisation. Some central banks on the continent
are beginning to take matters in their own hands by creating their own BCM
guidelines for the banking community in their country. Countries like Kenya,
Nigeria, Tanzania and Ghana have all developed a set of standards that can be
applied in the African Context.
The next few points will discuss some of the
challenges Africa needs to overcome before BCM can become a norm in the private
and public sector.
1. Lack of Skills
There are not enough
skilled people to meet the continent’s need. The continent needs to promote and
invest more on developing graduates and encourage more professionals to learn
about the business discipline.
2. Awareness
Another challenge Africa
is to overcome is the lack of awareness. There is a need for standardisation in
the continent that is globally recognised and acceptable. The region as a whole
is to be aware of these standards and how important it is to implement
effectively.
The successful
establishment of BCM has to be embedded in national and organisational cultures
by training and education.
3. Understanding
With awareness comes
understanding of what BCM really is. There are some misconceptions of what BCM
is. Many managers think BCM is all about backing up data. No, it not just about
backing up data in a remote location. It is a holistic process that identifies
potential threats to an organisation and the impact to business operations that
those threats, if realised, might cause. BCM is critical to ‘Business As Usual’
it is a benchmark for a resilient organisation.
4. Long term management and maintenance
Even when awareness
and understanding is improved through the educational effort of professional
BCM companies, the lack of skills limits the effective implementations and
maintenance of plans. Consultants often engaged by organisations develop and
roll out BCM plans, design an efficient system for them. However the problems
occur once the consultants have left. BCM is a continual process that needs to be
tested and updated regularly, so training people in BCM skills is crucial for
an effective strategy.
5. Cost
Every company is
concerned about costs and Business Continuity can be an expensive affair,
especially if solutions are created in-house. In many instances, Business
Continuity is put on the backburner simply because of the costs involved in
setting up a programme. This is the wrong approach to take. If executives
consider the expenses involved in creating their Business Continuity plan and
then compare it to the amount of money it would take to recover from a serious
disaster without such a plan, they would realise that the initial costs are
quite reasonable. The Information Warfare Site states that fires permanently
close 44 per cent of businesses affected, while after the 1993 World Trade
Centre bombing, 150 businesses out of 350 affected (that did not prepare BCM
plans) failed to survive the event.
Finally, business continuity process is a
necessary sustainability tool for maintaining successful business operations
and securing more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Africa. We have to cultivate the sprit of getting
things done, planning for, anticipating and minimising disruptive event. Let us protect our stakeholder.
Considering a BCM plan? Talk to Artcosolutions on enquiry@artcosolutions.com
