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If you’re a BCM Practitioner, you’ve probably been asked this question from your senior management: “How compliant is our Business Continuity program and how does it compare to others in our industry? “ Are you still trying to figure out what industry standards fit your program or are using manual inefficient tools that are holding you back? Do you know what areas need the most help that will bring the highest contribution to the sophistication and maturity of your program? A BCM GRC software tool is something you should consider today.
What the Trends Tell Us
BCM compliance across companies we have worked with has yielded interesting information:
- Many are afraid to assess their compliance – better to keep their head under the sand than know the truth
- Management education is needed to show how BCM benchmarking can be effectively used to manage their program
- The use of self-assessment tools to measure BCM compliance is non-existent or its a rudimentary tool with limited functionality
- Majority of organizations do not have a clear picture of where they stand and where their weaknesses or strengths lay
- Resource time is often being spent on program dimensions that have little to no effect on compliance and resiliency
- Management is continually asking for compliance benchmarking and reporting but it doesn’t exist
How a BCM GRC Tool Helps You
In a nutshell, a BCM GRC tool helps you better manage your program by balancing the risks and opportunities for improvement. If you’ve devised your own system of assessing your compliance, such as using a manual process, it gets a little trickier to assess and report on compliance on a regular basis. And if you’ve ever let something accidentally slip through the cracks, you can appreciate a better way to manage this process. While not every BCM GRC platform features questions modeled after industry standards and weighted by importance, permits task assignments and comprehensive management reporting you’ll benefit from choosing one that does. Unless that is, you have your own personal assistant who keeps you up to date about everything regarding BCM compliance…and these days, who does?
Your Goal is Compliance and Resiliency
If your goal as a BCM Practitioner — and let’s face it, every one of us has this as a goal — is to raise your compliance and resiliency, you need a reliable system for assessing compliance and a BCM GRC tool can play a major role in making all these business processes much easier. Let’s say you’ve been asked to assess your BCM compliance.
In your BCM GRC tool, you can quickly and easily assess the compliance of the five dimensions (Program Administration, Crisis Management, Business Recovery, Disaster Recovery and Supply Chain Risk Management) of your program. You can attach supporting documentation, so you have everything that relates to that assessment in one handy place. You can assign fellow planners to have access to specific programs or auditors to view reports/supporting documents on your compliance. You can add tasks and assign responsible parties for resolution to keep the program moving down the compliance trail. You can run management scorecards and reports on each dimension outlining the state of the program. This kind of highly valuable data gives a big picture analysis of what the compliance landscape looks like. For example, perhaps the tool identifies your BIA process is critically weak and does not comply with industry standards. This is worth considering. Perhaps it might be time to revise your BIA questionnaire, or look to outside agencies to implement a best practice approach.
Designed for You
The multitude of BCM industry standards is overwhelming even for the experienced practitioner. But MHA Consulting's BCMMetrics platform makes the process extremely easy to use and administer. It is designed to be simple enough to figure out within minutes.
If you’re serious about succeeding as a BCM Practitioner, make sure you’re using the right tools. BCM Practitioners like you can be more effective at successfully managing your BCM program through intelligent assessment and measurement. Try a 7 day trial of our paid plans by first contacting us for a demo.
Michael Herrera
Michael Herrera is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MHA. In his role, Michael provides global leadership to the entire set of industry practices and horizontal capabilities within MHA. Under his leadership, MHA has become a leading provider of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services to organizations on a global level. He is also the founder of BCMMETRICS, a leading cloud based tool designed to assess business continuity compliance and residual risk. Michael is a well-known and sought after speaker on Business Continuity issues at local and national contingency planner chapter meetings and conferences. Prior to founding MHA, he was a Regional VP for Bank of America, where he was responsible for Business Continuity across the southwest region.
