Does BCM exist in Afica?

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

The principles of Business Continuity Management

 

The constant evolution of today’s corporate environment has prompted many questions on how we plan for business resilience. Changing business dynamics coupled with the current economic climate pose new challenges for business continuity management; while events such as natural and manmade disasters we have witnessed this year push BCM to the fore as organisations seek to protect their continual survival.

Most articles on BCM have highlighted how an effectively structured and implemented continuity plan can serve to protect high-value activities and stakeholder interest. We ignore how BCM has contributed to overall business success and competitive advantage.

Artco solutions aim to offer an insight into what in our opinion are the nine principles of BCM

1.       Strategic orientation

BCM is a strategic initiative. It should be integrated into the corporate strategy planning level. Top management recognition and adoption of this strategic initiate is paramount to achieving organisational excellence. The business continuity manager has a pivotal role in establishing the competitiveness of the business through aligning BCM processes strategies and plans to corporate policy and structure.

2.       Leadership

Proactive business continuity leadership ensures that reputation and business performance are sustained from the moment disruptive event begins. It is important that business continuity is introduced at board level since it enhances the organisation’s long term competitiveness.

3.       Governance

BCM is an important element of an organisation’s overall approach to governance. It provides the impetus for delivering and governing the resilience programme in the organisation and its supply chain. It helps to establish the oversight capabilities required by senior executives to carry out their responsibilities for ensuring that effective management systems, including monitoring and control mechanisms have been out in place to protect assets, earnings capacity and reputation of the organisation.

4.       Good Business Management

The management function is about understanding the business philosophy, strategic objectives, corporate structure and critical operations of an organisation. It challenges corporate assumptions about threats and uncertainties, and facilitates greater certainty in the planning and achievement of long term goals.

5.       Multi disciplinary functions

It involves the skills and knowledge of a diverse group of people in the design, implementation and management of the programme. Management concepts in the field of strategy development, risk and insurance, human resources, quality planning and control, and finance, are all now essential parts of managing the BCM programme. The collective management progress preserves the long term well being of an organisation and its stakeholders, thereby facilitating business excellence. Core competence skills, notably, organisational management, analyse, communication, leadership, coordination, and innovation are the six fundamental managerial competencies of business continuity professionals.

6.       Anticipation

BCM is an active process which helps organisations anticipate threats and perceive the potentially significance implementations they could have for the organisations. This proactive sensing mechanism helps to remove the potential risk systems failures and safeguard mission critical operations.

7.       Communication

BCM promotes transparent communication within the organisation and amongst its stakeholders. A communication structure based on BCM underpins the corporate governance and improves the information flow to parties who require it for decision making, planning and implementation. During a crisis, it demonstrates the organisation’s transparency in dealing with the situation and reassures stakeholders. Such an approach reinforces stakeholder relationships and enhances shareholder value.

8.       Value preservation

Through BCM organisations are better able to withstand the impact of crises or recover more quickly thereby reducing the impact of loss and as a result preserving their overall value.

9.       Evolution

BCM is constantly changing and breaking new boundaries. One of the most common pit falls is that many regard it as simply a ‘crisis and invocation’ process stemming from IT DR origins. However, BCM has evolved significantly since then and is continually changing to meet new business challenges. It now offers a means of competitive advantage and gaining market share.

As business evolve BCM Mangers must take up the challenge of aligning BCMN with organisational performance, and promoting to senior executives the benefit it can provide in the context of strategic planning and the delivery of corporate goals.

Artco solutions believe that by training, exercising and rehearsing any organisation can make its plans, people and processes more resilient to a crisis. ‘We call this managing with certainty’. Our proficiencies reflect our strategic vision and ability to provide for the needs of new and existing clients to continue operations in the event of a disruption.