Is your business at risk?

There are many risks that can affect an organization's ability to continue their day to day biz and these can affect organization of all size across all sectors both directly and indirectly. Recent research conducted by  London chamber of commerce  reveals that over 70 % of small business in UK often do not consider the  risk they are exposed to as well as do not have contingency and continuity plan in place to mitigate such risk.

More often than none, businesses are usually caught up with it this “it cant happen to us” syndrome and  has even become a major challenge for businesses especially small and medium sized business in developing strategies to protect them against the risk that challenge their continuity. In the past organisations have witnessed and experience crisis event that had severe impact of their critical assets. You might say my business is not exposed to any disaster or risk event. This is absolutely incorrect, the truth and the fact is all business at some point will face events that challenge their continuity. However, let me remind you that crisis is no respecter of the size of your business, when it strikes, it has both micro and macro impact on your business. The dynamic and ever changing environment where we operate has called for a more strategic consideration for business leaders to begin to plan for the unexpected. Lack of preparation for the unexpected event can severely disrupt the operation, continuity, and effectiveness of your business as disabling events can come in all shapes and varieties. They can vary from the more common calamities like hard drive corruption, building fires or flooding to the rarer, yet more severe and often longer lasting disruptions that can occur on a city-wide or even national basis; events such as disruptions in transport (bomb attack, oil crises, metro shut-downs, transport worker, strikes, etc.), infrastructure weakening from terrorist attacks, or even severe loss of staff due to illness like a pandemic flu. All of these strike a blow at an organization's struggle for business continuity.

For small businesses the impact of the above mentioned and even lesser disasters can hit much harder. For example, unexpected non-availability of key workers alone could be catastrophic, potentially causing as much disruption to business continuity as technological hardship, especially if it occurs during the height of the company's busy season. If only one person is trained to do particular and/or essential tasks, their unexpected absence can severely disrupt productivity and efficiency.

Drawing inference from the case of Noah in the Bible, he and his family were able to survive the disastrous event of the flood that took over the entire world, not basically because he was a child of God, but because he was proactive and planed for the flood. This holds true in planning for the unexpected even though, Noah had expected the flood, but when it will happen he did not know. He was able to survive because of his pro-activeness to the anticipated event.

The question for business leaders today is what steps or strategies are you putting in place to protect your business, your investments and business reputation? 

Think about this. It is better late than never, because risk is inevitable for all business. Thus, developing strategies for your  business continuity will prepare your business for any potential disaster, crisis or incident and help ensure that you will be able to maintain continuity of your business practices, and reduce or even possibly remove the impact such calamities could have on your business. Not only will your data, hardware, software, etc., be better protected, but the people that compose your organization will be better safeguarded; financial losses and reputation damage will be avoided. In addition, you and your employees will be informed and rehearsed as to what actions to take to immediately start the recovery process and ensure business continuity if disaster strikes.

With so many potential business disasters and disruption in the hanging and dynamic environment businesses operates today, it seems unwise not to take actions to prepare for and try to prevent the devastating impact of any catastrophe.

THE CASE FOR BCM - Its relevance to the Nigerian Business

THE CASE FOR BCM - Its relevance to the Nigerian Business

For Nigeria, the relevance of BCM should increasingly become an issue of concern for proactive, forward thinking and strategic organisations. Many Nigerian organizations ignore business continuity management or are ignorant of the need for this initiative for a number of reasons considering that, Nigeria as a whole is not prone to natural disasters such as earth quakes, tsunami and hurricane, forgetting that crisis or disruption is not limited to natural disasters. It is important to note that business disruption are not limited to natural disasters, but its causes are multifaceted including human generated interruptions. The British standard (BS25999) identifies a range of internal and external risks that could negatively impact on the operations of organizations; including fire   outbreak, system failure, power outages, flooding, industrial action and strikes, succession failures, communication failure and any other events.

For instance the flood experienced in Nigeria over the past three (3) years is an indication that time and season are changing, the unimaginable is becoming imaginable, and the unanticipated is becoming reality. However, Nigeria in recent past has not witnessed such a degree of rain storm. Reports had it that most offices became inaccessible especially in Lagos, properties were destroyed, lives were lost and business activities became paralysed. In 2010, the flooding displaced more than two million people and inn 2011 over 102 people were believed to have died from the flood.  In 2012, NEMA figures show that 7,705,000 people were affected by the flood between July 1 and October 31 2012 with death figures of 398 people. In Kogi sate for example, the most recent flood disaster rendered more than 600,000 people homeless. Property worth more than 2billion naira was lost and business and commercial activities were paralysed especially those involved in fishing and rice farming. The education sector was equally affected as some primary schools were shut down due to the sinking of school infrastructures and facilities.

This event will have a life time impact on business and families affected. Most importantly, businesses locate on the island close to the sea metropolis should begin to strategically think of the worst case scenario as experienced in Japan drawing inference on the fact that the Japan earthquake erupted from the sea.

Again, the trend and frequency of bombings in Nigeria in recent times should be a wake up call for Nigerian organisations. Yes some businesses might say they are not affected by the bombings as they are not located in the northern region. This is very short sighted because no one knows when Lagos or their region will be the next city of attack. It is therefore necessary to take a proactive approach to planning and preparing. Between October 2010 and March, 2013, Nigeria had witnessed over twenty different bomb attacks and explosions by terrorist in different locations with notable attacks on the United Nations office, police headquarters, Kaduna attacks as well as the Christmas day bombings in Abuja. For example the bomb attacks in the northern region of Nigeria will have a life time impact on business, lives and families affected. Also communication network Giant, (MTN) was equally affected, its network mast were been bombed which significantly interrupted its service delivery as it became a crisis they had to deal with. Not only were they losing customers to competitors, they incur substantial losses, reputation and brand damage. These losses were as a result of the absence of business continuity strategy. However, if business continuity management strategies were in place, this would have reduced the impact of such event.  Not only has Nigeria recorded loss of lives and property as a result of these events, but these events have strategic implications for businesses and the nation as a whole. From the international community, Nigeria is gradually becoming a terrorist environment and this has a direct implication for foreign investments.

Furthermore, the recent Dana crash as well as its emergency response clearly shows the absence of BCM in the aviation industry and lack of coordination amongst emergency agencies in Nigeria. This should indeed be a wake up call for the air force being a major stakeholder in the aviation industry and the Nation as a whole. The crash and its responses thereto send a negative signal to the public and to the international community on the effectiveness and preparedness of the air force, emergency agencies and the aviation industry at large.  This then becomes imperative for the Nation to embrace Business continuity management, plan for different kind of disaster with a view accord importance to continuity planning in the budgets.

The wide-spread of eminent incidents, frequent bombings and terrorist attacks as well as the recent flooding in Nigeria have served to heighten the priority for embracing BCM initiatives, underlining the substantial risk of major operational disruptions to business and operations. The impacts of these crisis events should provide some impedance for a more recognition and acceptance of BCM initiative as a strategic function both in the public and private sector.

BCM -A step in the Right Direction for African Corporations

Welcome to the platform that seeks to promote awareness on is a relatively new concept in the area of business protection and enterprise wide risk management with interest of African businesses and corporations both in public and private sectors in mind.

There is an urgent  need for Business Continuity Management (BCM)  in Africa starting with the leaders and Giants in the African continent.

Business continuity management (BCM) is a relatively new concept in the area of business protection and enterprise wide risk management. However, organizations do not exist in a vacuum and organizations must seek to understand where its application will bring value as well as fits with other activities to support the achievement of organizational objectives. The subject and importance of business continuity management has received significant attention and awareness especially in developed economies of the world; however, it has received little or no attention in developing economies of Africa and Asia and as such many business leaders especially in Africa still do not recognize the starting point in developing these capabilities.

Business Continuity Management is a management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience and the capability for an effective response which safeguards the interests of its key stake holders, reputation, brand and value creating activities. It provides a basis for planning to ensure an organization’s long-term survivability following a disruptive event.

No organization can have complete control over its business environment  and as such all organizations from all sectors will at some point encounter possibility of disruptive incidents that have short and  long standing impact on normal operations to the very destruction of the organization. Organisations are faced with a variety of threats and vulnerabilities as business disruptions can include natural disasters such as flood, tsunami, fire outbreaks, power outages, system failures, man-made disruptions and as such organisations would look beyond industry specific and a single class of crisis and disruptive event. 

BCM is beyond just dealing with big impact; low probability events. It has become an essential enabler of organisational resilience as part of business as usual (daily operation) with direct attention and focus on identifying and protecting sources of value and value creating activities within an organisation.