[OR] eBook Chapter 3: Integrating Operational Resilience with Business Continuity Management

Integrating OR with Business Continuity Management - A Seamless Synergy

Welcome back, BCM professionals!  Having explored the power of Operational Resilience (OR) in Chapter 2, we now embark on a pivotal journey – integrating OR seamlessly with your existing Business Continuity Management (BCM) program.

This chapter delves into the exciting synergies between these two crucial disciplines, demonstrating how they work together to create a robust and holistic approach to organizational resilience.

Unveiling the Synergies

The beauty of OR lies in its ability to build upon your existing BCM expertise. Both disciplines share a common goal: ensuring your organization can withstand and recover from disruptions.

However, they approach this goal from slightly different angles. BC focuses primarily on maintaining critical business functions during disruptions, while OR takes a broader view, encompassing prevention, adaptation, learning, and recovery.

The magic happens here: these seemingly distinct approaches create powerful synergies. Let's explore some key examples:

Risk Management: BC risk assessments provide a strong foundation for identifying potential threats relevant to OR. Expanding this scope to include a broader range of operational risks gives you a more comprehensive understanding of potential disruptions.

Incident Response: Your well-honed incident response protocols from BC can be seamlessly integrated into the OR framework. This ensures a swift and coordinated response to disruptions, minimizing their impact.

Business Impact Analysis (BIA): The BIA conducted for BC, which assesses the impact of disruptions on critical business functions, can be readily adapted to inform OR planning. Understanding these impacts allows for the development of effective mitigation strategies.

Recognising these synergies can help you leverage your existing BCM knowledge and processes as a springboard to build a robust OR program.

Leveraging Your BCM Toolbox: Building on a Strong Foundation

Now, let's delve deeper into how you can utilize your existing BCM frameworks and processes for OR implementation. Here are some practical steps:

Expand Existing Risk Assessments: Utilise your BC risk assessments as a starting point. Expand the scope to consider broader operational threats beyond those directly impacting critical business services. This broadened perspective allows for proactive mitigation of potential disruptions before they occur.

Refine Business Continuity Plans: Breathe new life into your BCPs by incorporating OR principles. Consider alternative service delivery methods and build in greater flexibility for adapting to changing circumstances. OR emphasises adaptability, ensuring your BCPs can effectively address various disruptions.

Develop OR-Specific Tools and Processes: While leveraging existing BCM resources is valuable, there will be a need for additional tools and processes specific to OR. This might include scenario planning for diverse threats, developing recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for a more comprehensive range of functions, and establishing communication protocols for a broader range of stakeholders.

You'll create a comprehensive and practical OR program by strategically leveraging your BCM toolbox and supplementing it with OR-specific elements.

Adapting BC Plans for a Broader Perspective: Embracing the OR Lens
One key aspect of integrating OR with BC is adapting your existing BC plans to incorporate wider OR considerations.  Here's how you can achieve this:

Identify Dependencies: Unlike traditional BC planning, which often focuses on isolated business functions, OR emphasizes understanding your organization's interconnectedness. Map the dependencies between critical business services and other functions within the organization and external dependencies on suppliers and partners. This holistic view allows for a more comprehensive approach to disruption recovery.

Consider Alternative Service Delivery: Do not just focus on getting things back up and running the traditional way. Explore alternative methods for delivering critical services during disruptions. This might involve leveraging technology, outsourcing functions, or implementing temporary workarounds. By incorporating these options into your BC plans, you demonstrate greater adaptability.

Incorporate Learnings from Incidents: BC focuses primarily on recovering from past incidents. OR encourages continuous learning. Integrate a process within your BC plans to capture learnings from past incidents and incorporate them into your OR program. This ensures your organization is continuously improving its resilience posture.

Summing Up ...

By adapting your BC plans to encompass these broader OR considerations, you create a more comprehensive and future-proof program better equipped to handle the ever-changing threat landscape.

This chapter has laid the groundwork for integrating OR with your existing BCM program.  By leveraging synergies, utilizing your BCM expertise, and adapting your BC plans, you can create a robust and holistic approach to organizational resilience. 

The following chapters delve deeper into the practical aspects of building and implementing a comprehensive OR program.

More Information About Operational Resilience Course OR-5000 [OR-5] or OR-300 [OR-3]

To learn more about the course and schedule, click the buttons below for the OR-300 Operational Resilience Implementer [OR-3] course and the  OR-5000 Operational Resilience Expert Implementer [OR-5] course.

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