11% of those companies have had more than one incident.

The most common incident to affect companies was fire and explosion (15%), followed by supplier failure (13%). IT failure came third.

Surprisingly the only driver which has increased over the past two years for Business Continuity is competitive advantage with past experiences, best practice, regulatory compliance, shareholder pressure, client pressure, and insurer pressure all going down. Marsh concludes that this is due to the new nature of BCM being part of core business strategy and that there are fewer drivers needed to rase its importance. The competitive advantage driver appears to confirm this view.

The three biggest barriers to BCM were as follows: conflicting priorities (34%), a lack of time (30%) and a lack of resources (29%)

With this information it’s clear to see that the role of Business Continuity Management has changed over the last 2 years and has become more integrated into core business strategy, which is encouraging to see. Lets just hope that within that remit, telecoms continuity is as important as it should be.

The first points I have picked from the survey in part 1 of my blog on the survey results show an increasing priority and acceptance from senior management that Business Continuity Management is key to supply chain sustainability and should be integrated into strategic business objectives.

225 business continuity and risk managers were questioned through a web based survey to understand their perceptions on issues relating to business continuity management, the majority of whom come from the Finance or Manufacturing sectors in the UK and the Middle East.

The questions were designed by Marsh BCM experts and based on the survey from 2008 to understand a) current views and b) any changing views over the past 2 years.

Key survey results show:

1. 86% of respondents said that their BCM is aligned to their strategic business objectives (up 7% on 2008), with only 3% disagreeing (down 4%)
conclusion: Business Continuity Management is becoming less of an optional extra and more closely linked to business strategy.

2. 83% of respondents thought that BCM was integrated into their risk management programme (up 7%0, with only 6% disagreeing (down 3%)
conclusion: BCM is no longer a standalone measure but integrated into risk management.

3. 83% of respondents thought that top management understands BCM and provides full support (up 7%) with only 4% disagreeing (down 5%)
conclusion: increased senior management recognition and bui-in of business continuity management.

4. 68% of respondents agreed that their BCM plan covers their supply chain risks (up 14%) with 11% saying that it definitely did not (down 11%)
conclusion: significant events such as the Icelandic volcanic ash and economic crisis appear to have highlighted the vulnerability in the global supply chain. Supporting evidence in the survey shows that 13% of respondents have experienced a supply chain disruption in the last 2 years.

I will publish part 2 of my survey conclusions later this week so keep watching.

Aim for 100% continuity
When considering implementing a telecoms business continuity solution you should aim to ensure that the service you provide to your customers and suppliers is as close to normality as possible. By achieving this you minimise any negative effects of the disruption. Yet many businesses are settling for second best rather than 100% continuity.

Better than most but still not 100%
Gareth Howell (blogger on Business Continuity UK) had such a situation when BT disconnected lines into his office in order to fix a fault. With 5 minutes warning Gareth was able to get onto his company website on his laptop via his 3G modem and had his calls re-directed to a service in Luton. The people in Luton then informed him that someone had called and he was then able to return their call.

I applaud Gareth for having the foresight to have both systems and processes in place to cope with disruption to communications. However I do wonder why, when the technology is available, Gareth chose to have his calls re-directed to other people than have his number re-routed to his mobile phone or other landline phone which he could use.

In the same way that Gareth’s incoming calls have been re-directed to Luton via his local BT exchange, they could just as easily be re-routed to his mobile phone.

How do you re-direct your incoming calls during a disruption? The same way as Gareth or something different?

Michael Rendell, HR services leader at PwC, said financial firms that are able to accommodate flexible working will enjoy better levels of staff morale.

It is also widely accepted that those organisations may also be in a better position to retain the most talented employees.

Modern lives are so full with work, commuting, pressure and home/ family responsibilities that people often feel that their lives are being dictated for them and that they have little control over their time. Being able to work flexibly gives people back that control which in turn leads to more productive and balanced lives.

For the financial sector, working from home or other location has sometimes been seen as too risky, where private information may get leaked. But I would argue that this risk can easily be mitigated with processes and technology.

Security measures to protect laptops should be in force whether the employee is based at home or in the office, and voice recording of calls, whether by mobile or landline, can be the norm wherever an employee is located.

The number of job roles which can be performed away from the traditional office building is ever increasing, and this should be the case for the financial sector as well.

450 people died in the UK due to the swine flu virus which was minimal compared to the worst case scenario which predicted a possible 65,000 mortalities. The WHO will continue to monitor infection rates as they could rise again but it is largely believed that subsequent cases will remain at a seasonal flu level.

This particular pandemic did not reach the levels feared, but it was certainly a wake up call for organisations both in the public and private sector, to either dust off their pandemic plans or to put some in place. So the next time a flu pandemic really takes hold there should be no excuses for organisations to grind to a halt if a large chunk of their staff are struck down…

No pressure there then.

When an organisation has a mix of employees based in the office and some working from home either permanently or part of the week, the reliance upon email, landlines and mobile phones is of particular importance in being able to keep those remote employees informed of company news and everyday news from managers or team members.

In an emergency situation such as a real or even suspected terrorist threat in the area where an office building is located, senior management would want to be sure that their employees were fully aware of how they were managing the situation and that they had their employees’ welfare at heart. The natural communication methods of choice would be to send a message via email, SMS, and perhaps post updates on an intranet site in larger organisations.

But bear in mind that during the July 7th bombings the mobile network was so overloaded that many people could not get their messages through. Smart organisations will be looking for a multi-channel solution which can intelligently send messages on a priority basis, firstly trying SMS and then, if no response is made, trying email, voice recording on a landline or web status page. In today’s social media society publishing messages via Twitter and Facebook is also a perfectly legitimate way of reaching people.

In non-emergency situations the same tool coud be used to target customers with tailored information that would be of value to them, for example if a person signed up to a cinema’s mailing list they could receive timely SMS texts relating to film offers. Businesses could also send out promotions to their dealers, resellers or suppliers simultaneously.

The applications of a rapid notification solution are only limited by a person’s imagination, and in our ‘networking’ society it is more important than ever that the right information gets to the right people at the right time.

Technology great, process not great
Gareth Howell’s blog on ‘why business continuity planning should deal with processes, not technology’ quotes a fantastic example of lack of process undermining technology.

He cites a medium-sized company which had purchased laptops and remote access for employees to use in times when the office becomes inaccessible. However in January this year when the severe snow arrived it became obvious that keeping the laptops in the office was not the wisest of ideas as the employees were unable to get there to pick them up!

Process great, technology not great
However on the flip side the process could be in place – employees keeping the laptops at home for just an occasion – but then how will those employees continue answering their incoming calls that are directed at their office desk?

Unless the technology is available to re-route those individual incoming calls seamlessly to the employees’ home phone, then the phone will be ringing endlessly at the empty office.

A throrough planning of technology and processes which work together is the only way to ensure that should the worst happen to stop your staff from getting to work, everything is covered.

A recent article in the Money section of the Guardian on the topic of the rise in homeworking cites several examples of how home working is actually improving business and productivity. Caroline Waters, BT’s director of people and policy backs up BT’s claim that it gets an average of 20% more work from its home-working employees stating:

“It works amazingly for us. You get great productivity, reduced sick absence, high levels of performance. And we know it works for a lot of other organisations, because we help a lot of them put it in place.”

As an ex-BT home-worker myself and can fully testify to this statement. I tended to work longer hours as I had no commute to negotiate and I took fewer sick days as I was able to work when I felt up to it and rest when I needed to. With two young children in nursery and school it was the ideal arrangement. My manager got the best of me as did my family.

So for employers who do not want to promote home working I think you’re missing a trick, and actually what you are saying to your company is that you don’t trust your employees, which begs the question: why did you hire them in the first place?

However what appears to be lacking is any hint of money for flood defences, flood avoidance technology or business continuity and disaster recovery measures. But hey at least when a flood occurs we can see on a piece of paper that the town was at risk!

Perhaps I’m being a little harsh, but as the National Flood Emergency Framework for England is also published today I was perhaps expecting a little more specific information and guidance than it actually delivers. It does refer to responsibilities under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and says how communications should be considered:

Under the section, ‘Detailed planning on developing a multi-agency flood plan’ (p.132) the following is written:

Communication arrangements: This section should cross-refer to LRF telecommunication plans where they exist. Where they don’t exist, a section should be inserted in the MAFP on how communications between responding organisations would work in the case of any public networks failing.

In addition on p.67 it reads:

‘All agencies should assume that telecommunications may be compromised during flood events and include provision for dealing with a failure.’

While this does sound like music to my ears, if local authorities aren’t meeting the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act then why would they also adhere to this message?

I’d certainly be interested to know how many LRF’s have telecoms plans to which the framework frequently makes reference to…

As you may have read recently, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council spent £36,000 on a virtual town hall in the online portal known as second life. I admire their forward thinking approach to using technology in a bid to provide an attractive customer service which can also cost cuts, however organisations must do their return on investment studies before jumping head first into the latest trend.

At the end of the day technology is developed in order to help people connect with other people quickly, efficiently and with tangible feedback and results. All aspects of life revolve around relationship building, least of all business and public services. Second life proved a flop because in my opinion it is based more on fantasy rather than reality, allowing users to have an alternative experience to that which they would normally have by walking into a shop or business.

In order to bridge the gap between providing best customer service at lowest cost the answer is using technology to enable employees to undertake their job more cheaply. In the case of the services provided by a local council many of these can surely be provided online with ‘click to talk’ or instant messaging with helpdesk employees who can work from home?