Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Business continuity is far more than a buzzword – it is an essential piece of running any business. From retail to logistics, financial, legal, healthcare, and really any industry, if a company cannot use its technology, it is effectively shut down. This is why companies need to have a solid business continuity management (BCM) plan in place and ensure they spend on it and realize it is a part of business insurance.

A recent Continuity Central survey of users, primarily in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, found 31 percent of organizations will spend more on BCM in 2019 than they did in 2018. Lack of budget is the biggest concern among respondents.

The question worth asking is whether around a third of companies spending more on BCM is a good or bad percentage. The reality is, companies are beginning to understand there are many threats to their businesses as they read news stories about other companies that have been brought down because they were not prepared.

In particular are recent earthquakes in areas which didn’t see them before. For example the one this week on the east coast. Other challenges include cryptomining, freak weather thanks to increasing climate risk, IoT hijacking, nation-state hacking, government shutdown issues and Silicon Valley growth.

An encouraging sign is 28 percent of organizations will add to their business continuity teams – a healthy number, which is similar to the 31 precent mentioned above.

Other important details from the poll include:

• 24.5 percent will be making major revisions to BCM strategies and/or business continuity plans;
• 11 percent of respondents expect their organizations to implement new business continuity software during 2019;
• 9 percent expect their organizations to conduct more business continuity tests and exercises during 2019;
• 9 percent will be making significant changes to their crisis management capabilities;
• 8 percent will be giving more attention to managing cyber security and cyber risks;
• 8 percent will be making a major revision to IT DR or ICT continuity strategies;
• 5 percent say that there will be a move towards enterprise-wide resilience, organizational or operational resilience.

Overall, it is really good news that companies are more aware than ever of the risks of not investing in BCM. Let’s hope in the war on natural disasters and hackers, business has a more successful 2019 than 2018.