The Do's of Business Continuity Management Software

Business continuity management software offers myriad benefits - rapid response to disasters, incident management, prioritization, reputation protection, and more.

As new threats emerge, guidelines are revised, the needs of the organization change, and business continuity management evolves, those organizations using software will find it easier, more efficient, and more cost effective to revise their plans and programs to meet those demands as well as address and implement the various elements of BCM and crisis response.

Software supports BCM frameworks and standards and focuses on making BCM easier for program managers and participants by providing things like BCM guidance, content, checklists, and templates, as well as tools for program management like tracking, monitoring, and reporting.

Software also provides ways to make the program easier to maintain, like escalation and approval workflows, scheduling of alerts, reminders, and other system notifications. By adding automation to your data management, data collection and maintenance will be less time consuming and the data more reliable. Having reliable data when responding to a crisis is one of the key components of organizational resilience.

As you build out your BCM software, keep these key points in mind.

What Can Business Continuity Management (BCM) Software Do for You?

• Builds organizational resilience and eliminates duplicate efforts by being a single source for building and managing all resilience plans and activities for various teams and the areas that support those teams
• Provides easier, more efficient, and reliable maintenance by utilizing a relational database and automated data uploads and integrations
• Automates manual tasks such as triggering emails, approval processes, scheduling, assignments, follow-up, monitoring, and approval processes
• Strengthens the BCM program through distributing the work, collaboration, and automated workflows
• Provides easier program management and understanding of its effectiveness through program benchmarking, monitoring, and reporting
• Schedules, executes, assigns, and monitors follow-up of exercises
• Dynamically and more easily generates reports
• Aids with audits through automated revision trails and documentation
• Maps dependencies and interdependencies of processes, resources, functions, etc.
• Activates incidents - have as many plans, scenarios, teams, and tasks as needed in one location for easier management and understanding of where you are in an incident
• Creates automatic notifications and details who to contact and how for improved crisis communications
• Removes the cost and resources of managing in-house solutions
• Ensures easy and secure access and availability

Do:

• Integrate multiple data feeds
• Use your software in exercising
• Train on BCM with your software
• Build resilience and a stronger BCM program by distributing the work
• Use your software to standardize your plans and program participation
• Maintain and manage your program with software
• Use your software to determine impacts and prioritize processes and resources
• Use software to compare and analyze risks to determine the level of controls/treatment required and to ensure controls are enacted
• Use to measure likelihood and impact
• Use for plan activation
• Use BCM software business continuity knowledge and expertise as an extension of your team
• Use software to help mature your program and address compliance requirements

Key Takeaways of BCM Software

• Beneficial no matter the approach, methodology, or maturity level; helps to mature BCM programs
• Improves and builds a culture of resilience
• More reliable data and easier upkeep to assist with the evolving BCM landscape
• Plans are more accessible in a secure manner
• Provides the tools and workflows for BCM and resilience program management, updating, and monitoring
• Better crisis communications and ability to manage an incident
• Business continuity intelligence
• Makes plans more actionable
• Single source for resilience