| back | Thinking about Tomorrow: The Business Continuity Guide "Selling
Business Continuity within the Corporation" by
Dan Derby, Principal, The Derby Consulting Group, LLC
CHAPTER TWO: FIRST STEP
THINK LIKE THE CEO Don't start by following your instincts! By that I mean listing all possible real and serious exposures. That's is the path to madness and one of the quickest ways to get dismissed as irrelevant. You've probably got zero resources and no time. Find a few well drawn attention getters to convince the decision makers. First, look at your company from the CEO's point of view. What are the key business drivers? What is the most important work going on in the company, today...right this minute? Are there major processes generating income? This isn't about being complete or getting all possible risks covered. You'll revisit these questions with lots of help when you get a funded business impact analysis / risk assessments later. This is about making a point about the company's vulnerabilities. Do that and you're on your way. And don't let your pet concerns dominant your thinking. Recognize that most day-to-day "disasters" can be survived. Skip the small stuff. And when you put it on paper, use CEO vocabulary, too. Talk stock price, not production cost. Lost financing not reduced efficiencies. And since all companies are unique, don't use cookie cutter thinking out of a magazine to decide what's important and what's not. HOW BAD COULD IT BE? Disaster driven closures are mostly due to lack of financial
reserves for the business disruption disasters bring. The ability to set aside those
kind of reserves is beyond most businesses. 90 percent of small businesses hit
with a major catastrophe never recover and only 43 percent of all companies in the same
circumstances resume business, ever. BTW, among those that do reopen, only 26
percent are doing business two years later. If their data is lost, 50 percent
file for bankruptcy immediately.
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