Business Continuity and the role of the CEO

This is the second in a series of articles introducing the concepts of Business Continuity Management. For an index to the whole series, go here. Why not sign-up to receive this blog by email so that you don’t miss future posts on this vital subject.

Introducing a business continuity management system into many organisations can be hard work. In my experience, it’s not that people don’t want to do it, it’s more that there are other pressures on their time. Whilst they may be quite prepared to spend a couple of hours conducting a Business Impact Assessment of their own business area, they often don’t because it’s “more important” to get that sale out of the door, finish that report, visit that customer, etc.

It is for these reasons that visible commitment to the process from the top is of vital importance, and this is where the CEO comes in.

Whilst the CEO (or equivalent title) of a company has many responsibilities to fulfill, the one I am talking about here is their duty to set the corporate style or tone with respect to the long term survival of the organisation. The long term survival of a company is at least dependent on the resilience that is built in as it is on the organisation’s ability to trade profitably. Remember, we’re talking about long term survival: the next 5-10-20 years, not just this year.

So, on this basis, it is the CEO’s responsibility to sponsor and champion the introduction of the concepts of business continuity into the organisation. This means communicating the importance of the process to all those invololved with the business and ensuring that they have the time available to deliver on their responsibilities in relation to business continuity.

It’s not easy, and there will always be good reasons why a business continuity planning task gets delayed due to some operational priority, but provided the CEO stands behind the decision to introduce business continuity into the organisation, those who are tasked with actually doing the work will feel empowered to ensure that they delliver on those responsibilities.

What do you think? Is your business continuity programme backed by your CEO? Do tasks get derailed by operational priorities? Do let me know by commenting on this blog.

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