BC Predictions for 2013 - Number Three: IT will still dominate BC thinking but will be refreshed under the issues raised by cyber threat, big data, cloud and mobility services and social media

Lyndon Bird FBCI

Continuing our review of our predictions for 2013, most people believe that IT will still dominate BC thinking but will be refreshed under the issues raised by cyber threat, big data, cloud and mobility services and social media.  Worries about a myriad of cyber fears will start to move on from its hype phase to a more sophisticated, nuanced understanding of the main issues, threats and vulnerabilities.

Strangely, however, the biggest concern many organizations still worry about is the oldest of all business continuity issues - IT or Telecom disruption. This has had a considerable revival in the past year, perhaps highlighted by the surprisingly long outages being experienced by a major bank and more than one mobile telecom network provider.

Big picture – long picture: the value of horizon scanning

Lee Glendon CBCI

Big picture – long picture¹: the value of horizon scanning

 

How can you ensure that your BCM programme and resources are allocated in a way proportionate to the current and potential threats that the company is and will be facing?
 

That’s a real question one of our members faced last year from her senior management team.  While some folk will be frustrated at the threat-oriented starting point of the question, it is not an uncommon one as many practitioners will confirm.   While ‘risk assessment through threat evaluation’ may provide some assistance with the question posed above, horizon scanning potentially provides a framework to build out the situational picture.  It also provides an opportunity for a proactive stance by practitioners.

Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) 2013 – BC for the risks you can see and the ones you can’t

Donna Monkhouse, Your BC Eye

Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) 2013 – BC for the risks you can see and the ones you can’t
 

18^th to 22^nd March 2013
 

The theme

In today’s world of economic, social and political uncertainty, organizations are confronted with an ever-increasing range of risks to deal with. But there are risks we can see and then there are those we can’t, the so-called “black swans” that swim up on us from nowhere, the high-profile, high-impact, hard-to-predict and rare events. Now more than ever, organizations are looking for a solution to help them manage both types of risk.  That solution is Business Continuity (BC).

But what is BCAW?

BCAW is an annual global event that is facilitated by the BCI and is a key vehicle in raising the awareness of BC as well as showcasing its value as an integrated part of every organization’s strategy.  Every year we select an over-arching theme based on our Members feedback and then build upon this throughout the week.  This year’s theme is Business Continuity for the risks you can see and the ones you can’t.

10 Business Continuity Predictions for 2013 - getting to grips with Business Reslience



Lyndon Bird FBCI



At the start of the year it is always tempting to forward and make some predictions. Like New Year resolutions, however, they are generally much modified as soon as they come into contact with reality. Nevertheless at the BCI we asked our experts what they thought might be important Business Continuity trends in 2013 and got some interesting responses, from which we listed our top ten, and here they are:

10 Business Continuity Predictions for 2013

Planning for major events

Donna Monkhouse, Your BC Eye

2012 will always be synonymous with the UK staging one of the most successful ever Olympic and Paralympic Games.   Its success has become part of Britain’s legacy.  But despite the strong positivity that surrounds the smooth operation of the Games, on the planning front, there were many that complained about a state of over-preparedness, declaring that too much time and effort had been squandered on unnecessary planning. 

 

Wide-spread traffic chaos, business disruptions, terrorist attacks and a grid-locked London were all predicted, but never actually occured.   So perhaps the question we need to be asking is not whether we did too much planning, but whether the quantity and quality of the planning undertaken helped to minimise any disruptions and whether without it, we would have experienced more chaos, more incidents and a less successful hosting of this major event