Resilience in the Supply Chain - Tips for how to improve BCM

Deborah Higgins MBCI

Achieving resilience in the supply chain is something all organizations aspire to. We still have a long way to go, and it may be that increasing or improving resilience in the supply chain is a more realistic goal than achieving resilience.

According to the Business Continuity Institute's recent Horizon Scan Survey published in January of this year, among the top threats dominating the horizon scanning of BC professionals around the world are unplanned IT and telecom outages, data breaches, adverse weather and interruption to utility supply. Clearly such disruptions have far reaching consequences on an organization, but specifically in the supply chain, where effectively the impact is multiplied.

In a major disaster, employees are impacted personally and their family comes first, not the business.  

A recent report by Zurich Municipal puts supply chain failure as the third major incident risk faced today and yet found misplaced confidence in supply chain risks among public sector leaders. It cannot be exclusively a public sector leader problem.

Supply chain disruptions have led to a loss of productivity for almost half of businesses surveyed in the latest BCI Annual Supply Chain Resilience Survey. In a follow-up report on global supply chain resilience, based on interviews with organizations whose supply chains were disrupted by the Great East Japan and Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes in 2011, the lessons learned have prompted significant changes in supply chain strategies. For one organization the key change was to engage with alternative suppliers. For another it was to undertake a much more detailed Business Impact Analysis to gain a better understanding of what impacts their supply chain, people being one of the greatest factors. In a major disaster, employees are impacted personally and their family comes first, not the business, and organizations have learned that this must be reflected in their business continuity arrangements.

Increasingly complex supply chains and dependencies on ICT, leaner management processes, sole/multi-source suppliers and just-in-time delivery methods can make the goal of supply chain resilience seem impossible to achieve. Whether we are dependent on a supply chain or part of a supply chain, we are all vulnerable to disruptions beyond our control.

Hints and Tips

What can we do to work towards achieving our supply chain resilience? Here are some tips:

1. Think strategically about managing risk within the supply chain and across partners. Having business continuity management at board level will ensure that a comprehensive approach is taken to business resilience. BCM provides the link between the organization's objectives, the risks it agrees to take and the measures needed to manage the resulting vulnerabilities.
2. Understand our organization by carrying out a Business Impact Analysis to ensure that we identify those key suppliers that deliver our products and services. Using BCM techniques will identify key suppliers by the part they play in our organization's critical processes, activities, our assets and resources.
3. Prioritize our key suppliers (typically between 1 and 5%) and base this prioritization on the information collected through the Business Impact Analysis rather than how much is spent with them or who the main threats are.
4. Understand the immediate impact of a disruption and the longer term consequences to stakeholder confidence and reputation arising from a supply chain failure. The media and stakeholders will have little sympathy for our situation if we did not plan for the consequences of a supply chain failure. We may not be able to do anything about the failure of a supplier, but we can plan for the consequences of it.
5. Have an incident management plan in place to respond to the immediate impact of a supply chain disruption as part of our BCM arrangements. Ensure the incident management team is well rehearsed.
6. Test and exercise our BCM arrangements to include supply chain failure scenarios. Involve all parts of the business to ensure all potentially impacted areas are considered.
7. Seek adequate assurance from our suppliers, not just asking if they have a BC plan. Examine whether it is fit for purpose and consider how and if it fits with our own organization's recovery objectives.
8. Collaborate with and build good relationships with key suppliers and support each other through the BCM process, including planning activities and exercises to improve resilience.

It is when BCM techniques are applied to managing the supply chain that a better understanding of the risks, and how we can mitigate these risks, makes the goal of achieving resilience in the supply chain a more realistic one.

If you are interested in taking part in The BCI's 4th annual Supply Chain Resilience Survey supported by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS), Zurich and DHL Supply Chain, we would greatly welcome your input.

Also if you are interested in reading the Zurich Municipal report referred to in this blog or the BCI's Horizon Scan 2012 report, please visit our website: www.thebci.org.

BCM World Conference and Exhibition – why this is the ‘must attend’ event for BCM practitioners

Deborah Higgins MBCI

Life as a BCM practitioner in any organisation can sometimes feel lonely and like an uphill struggle, a never-ending battle with no imminent victory in sight. 

We need to be a ‘jack of all trades’ starting from knowing how to make BCM relevant and of interest to all areas of the organisation, to being a master of persuasion to convince sceptical stakeholders, to having to have an eye for detail to carry out an effective BIA as well as being highly organised to maintain the BC Plan and be skilled facilitators to run our exercises!

The constant battle as we BC practitioners strive to embed BCM into our organisation’s culture is taxing to say the least and just when we feel like giving up as our energy levels ebb into the distance, along comes the BCM World Conference to revitalise the parts other events cannot reach and to fill us with inspiration and renewed enthusiasm for our one true ‘professional’ passion.

BCM World Conference is the place where  we can be with our allies, where we stand together with the ‘already convinced’ and the ‘converted’, where we are part of a global, united force and where we can find temporary release  from our ivory towers

For me the Conference is a place I go to immerse myself in the world of BCM. As a delegate I can find out what’s new, what other practitioners from a wide range of organisations are doing and how are they doing it. I can listen to professionals from all over the world talk about common problems we all face and become part of the conversation about what we can do about it. I can learn from the wealth of experience and knowledge from experienced leaders in their fields, share my own experience and best of all I can take this away with me back to my place of work.

I can find out what tools are out there to help me do my job by visiting the exhibition. I can see anything from software providers, salvage companies and consultants all who know exactly what I do and why I am there. I have listened to some fascinating stories in presentations given on the exhibition floor. I have been inspired to attend workshops and training courses and I can find out how to continue with my professional development.

I have been fortunate to be in a position to go to BCM World and take the opportunity to learn, to network and make new friends and I can’t imagine not attending the conference in the future.

This year I am lucky enough to work for the Business Continuity Institute and so I don’t need to make a business case to my employers to fund my attendance! But I do know that there is no better place for anyone with any interest in Business Continuity to be.

If, like me, you leave with a renewed feeling of enthusiasm for your work and full of useful knowledge and some new ideas to try back in the office, then it has been a worthwhile investment and one you will continue to reap the benefits of for a very long time.        

And if you are looking to save a bit of money, the BCI are offering an Early Bird Rate for both Members and Non-Members, which is available until 31^st July 2012.  So hurry and take advantage of this by booking your place right now here   

To find out more about the Conference click here or download the Conference Programme here

Look forward to seeing you there.

Deborah Higgins, MBCI

Technical & Learning Manager at the BCI

The Revival of IT Disaster Recovery as a BCM Core Issue

Lyndon Bird FBCI

The one thing that almost all Business Continuity professionals agree upon is that BCM originated in IT Disaster Recovery (ITDR). Until very recently I would have argued that ITDR was no longer a core issue of BC practitioners in multi-national or global organizations. Although the risks of IT failure were extensive and the potential impact massive, the probability of those risks being manifest was very much under control. The sheer expenditure and sophistication of ICT in major organizations should have designed resilience into the infra-structure so that IT failures were largely invisible to customers and other external stakeholders.

My first reaction to hearing that the Royal Bank of Scotland had serious IT problems with a software upgrade was one of disbelief. Surely not I told my colleagues, there has to be more to it than this, perhaps a cyber-attack or perhaps internal sabotage. When no rumours of such dramatic events emerged and the banking group kept extending their expected recovery period I had to reluctantly admit I was wrong. As I write, the banking group are still not totally operational at their Ulster Bank subsidiary after 4 weeks of disruption, and even customers at the bank’s main brands (RBS and NatWest) experienced delays of a week or more.

The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) launches Global Awards 2012







BCI Global Awards 2011

The Business Continuity Institute has launched its 2012 Global Awards.  The Awards recognise the outstanding achievements of business continuity professionals working worldwide and celebrate the top talent in this rising industry. 

This year sees the launch of two new judged categories - BCM Newcomer of the Year and Business Continuity Team of the Year - as well as the addition of Business Continuity Personality of the Year, which is decided by public vote. 

An independent judging panel presides over the Awards entries.   Eight judges representing the education, private and public sectors in Australia, India, South Africa, USA and the UK, including the Houses of Parliament make up the panel and ensure a truly cross-sector and global evaluation.

The Awards will be presented at the BCI Gala Dinner and Awards that completes day one of the BCM World Conference and Exhibition 2012 that takes place 7^th to 8^th November 2012 at Olympia, London. 

This year the Gala Dinner is being hosted at one of London’s top tourist attractions, Madame Tussauds, home to stars past and present, providing a fitting setting for a BCM star-studded event.

The BCI Global Awards are open to everyone working in the business continuity industry.

The deadline for entries is Friday, 7^th September 2012. 

Visit BCI Global Awards 2012 to find out more.

Business Continuity - getting buy-in at the top

Lyndon Bird FBCI

It is difficult to get buy-in at the very top in organizations because BCM is wrongly seen as an operational matter. In a booming economy it is easy to think that sufficient resources are available to deal with any adverse incident that might occur. However, in these more challenging times, there is less confidence in the ability of an organization’s capability to simply “buy itself out of trouble”.

Many strategic decisions are taken without full consideration of the consequence of interruption such as, the growth of outsourcing, off-shoring, long supply chains and low cost manufacturing. Whilst generally adding short-term value to the bottom-line, when any of these strategies fail to deliver, reputation and brand image are compromised. Short-term financial losses might be containable but long-term loss of market share is often much more damaging.

So getting buy in at the top requires a Business Continuity professional to have better understanding of the concerns of Top Management and an ability to communicate any risk concerns in a language they are familiar with. Real high-profile examples help grow awareness and promote management attention but only if the business consequences of a disruptive event are emphasised, not the technical failures that caused it. Many leaders were shaken by the corporate impact that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill incident had on the finances, share-price and reputation of BP, a truly global business. Business Continuity Managers can benefit themselves and their organizations by using their skills to identify their own organization’s potential high consequence events.