When 2022 arrives, take advantage of the opportunity to put your business continuity program on the map. A program that protects your organization the way it was five years ago is of limited use if things have changed significantly since then. Once 2022 rolls around, take stock of where business is then and make sure your BC program is tailored to match. Are you expanding? Contracting? Consolidating? Have you recently acquired any new units? How has the pandemic affected you? Are most people still working remotely or are you in a hybrid situation or fully back to work? Organizations change and your BC program needs to keep pace. Lastly, you should take a look at your organization as a whole in terms of its trajectory and prospects. Are your most vital vendors responsible and resilient? Or are they sitting ducks? For more about securing your supply chain, see “ Let’s Get Critical: Identifying the Vendors You Truly Depend On,” “ Vulnerable Vendors: Supplier Weaknesses Put Your Organization at Risk,” and “ How to Stop Third-Party Vendors from Becoming Your Achilles’ Heel.” Also consider the state of your suppliers’ BC programs. Anything that hurts your most important suppliers has the potential to harm your organization as well since you depend on them to carry out your mission. Focus on the suppliers that provide the goods, services, and technology that are most critical to you. In looking at the threats that have the potential to harm your organization, you should also consider your suppliers. For more information, check out “ Driving Blind: The Problem with Skipping the Threat and Risk Assessment,” “ Weighing the Danger: The Continuing Value of the Threat and Risk Assessment,” and “ A Sample Threat and Risk Assessment: The Case of Acme Widget Corp.” Which have the potential to strike your organization? How likely is each to occur? What mitigations have you implemented? Understanding your threat landscape lets you prepare for the most likely and impactful risks. Extreme weather and cyberattacks are on the rise, and human threats remain a danger. Adequately training the staff to carry out your plans and recover the businessĬonsider the potential negative events that could impact your organization, including natural, human-caused, and technological events.Progressing in your testing program, such as by moving from tabletop tests to full functional exercises.Keeping your business continuity and IT disaster recovery plans up to date.Devising and fully implementing and validating business recovery strategies.Scheduling, conducting, and maintaining business impact analyses (BIAs).

Specifically look at how well you are executing on the following foundational BCM tasks: Look at your program from an operational perspective and determine whether you are hitting your marks. Focus on measuring and boosting the VOI your program brings to your organization. Your managers will appreciate it, and it will give new direction to your exertions. A high VOI indicates you have built a sound program and mitigated significant risk. A BC programthat has high alignment with industry standards and low residual risk has a high VOI. Value on Investment. VOI is an intangible asset that contributes significantly to an organization’s performance.For more information see, “ The Big Three of Residual Risk.” Squeezing down residual risk is a great way to boost your organization’s resiliency. At most organizations, residual risk resides in one or more of the following three areas: recovery strategies, recovery exercises, and basic infrastructure. Residual Risk. Residual risk is the risk that remains in your organization after the steps you have taken to make it more resilient are factored in.Don’t have a standard? Pick one already! (For a breakdown of the main ones, see “ Standard Time: The Best Time to Choose a Business Continuity Standard Is Right Now.”) Selecting a BC standard that is suitable for your organization and moving into alignment with it is one of the best things you can do to strengthen your program and protect your stakeholders. Compliance Strive to get in alignment with your organization’s chosen business continuity standard.Think about the strategic aspects of your business continuity program and specifically the following three areas: Together they make up a business continuity roadmap for 2022. Here are five areas you should look at in the coming year to guide your work and organize your program. Related on BCMMETRICS: Get Out the Map: Why Your BCM Program Needs a Roadmap

Roadmap planner for 3 years