The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) has brought out its first report on operational resilience.
A survey shows that the board, and most commonly the Chief Operations Officer, is responsible for championing operational resilience; while the implementation and day-to-day management of operational resilience frequently falls on the shoulders of the head of business continuity (BC). This has inevitably led to some confusion, according to the report; “operational resilience is just business continuity done well” was a sentence often repeated by respondents during the project. As a result, the report, sponsored by Castellan, sought to define the very real difference between the two interlinked resilience methodologies; BC, and the international organisational resilience standard, ISO 22316.
Some working in resilience feel that BC is likely not have the knowledge and resource to lead the transition to a more strategic and customer-centric operational resilience approach; while others fear they could lose sight of internal blind-spots if too much focus is placed on the customer. The UK regulator of the financial services sector, the FCA is requiring a ‘Supervisory Approach to Operational Resilience’, seen by some elsewhere as a blueprint.
In a foreword, BCI Executive Director David Thorp wrote: “This report has certainly been eye-opening to say the least. The understanding, the terminology and the operational resilience regulations themselves differ tremendously between countries, regions and sectors. Whilst it is certain is there is no “right” or “wrong” definition of operational resilience, with nearly 80 per cent of those answering the survey either having operational resilience programme in place, the appetite to adopt frameworks is clearly there.”
Most, 78 per cent of organisations reported either having or developing an operational resilience programme. Across regulated sectors and regions, such as aviation, adoption is understandably higher. Many in the resilience field are building their own internal frameworks (often influenced by regulation) while others have built peer-to-peer networks where discussions can take place between like-minded organisations on how to build programmes and, where applicable, meet the requirements of customers, or others.
Brian Zawada, Chief Strategy Officer at Castellan Solutions said: “Castellan sponsored this report because the concepts and practices espoused by operational resilience have become incredibly important to organisations around the world in all sectors. Putting the customer first in terms of preventing and responding to disruption is essential. Making the assumption that’s its not a question of if, but when, a disruption will occur is essential as well. When paired with a strong crisis management and crisis communications capability, organisations that consider the concepts in this report will be far more resilient than those that don’t. And the engagement with senior leadership will excel as well!”
The document and others by the BCI is available freely on their website; you have to sign up (also free) with user name and password. Visit https://www.thebci.org/.
