Business Continuity Consultancy | Concorde Informatics

Someone once said: "Consultants know what to do when you see the light at the end of the tunnel … buy more tunnel"

So why have a consultant? Why use them in your business planning? Why have a business continuity management system at all? Why not save money, time and effort and hope nothing goes wrong.

On the other hand, there have been wise men through time:

"It wasn’t raining when Noah started the Ark!" (unknown)

"What we anticipate seldom occurs; but what we least expect generally happens" (Benjamin Disraeli)

Or putting it more empirically:

"The tendency of an event to occur varies inversely with ones preparation for it!" (David Seales)

On reflection, maybe we should do something. But why go through all that investigation, strategy development, planning consultations and testing stuff, let’s just do it: write the plan, get it signed off and get on with the day job and not worry about something that will never happen anyway.

"Planning is an unnatural process: it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise; rather that being proceeded by a period of worry and depression" (Sir John Harvey-Jones)

So yes, we do need to go through the planning process and have something in place which:

• is simple to understand
• has considered the majority of impacts likely to happen and even some of those unthinkable ones
• is owned by the business and is a part of people’s daily activities
• is workable
• is flexible, to take into account localised disruptions, seasonal changes, other variable factors and the most unpredictable element of all – people
• keeps us street legal!

As well as our wise men, societal regulators insist that businesses and organisations do think about the unforeseen in order to protect others: the public, investors, stakeholders, customers, employees and life itself.

Business continuity management systems give organisations a degree of protection against the unexpected. The real value of that insurance is gained by doing it properly and keeping up the payments i.e. maintaining it.

That, in a way, brings us back to consultancy – why bother?

At Concorde we recognise continuity planning is not your day job, it’s ours. We equally recognise running your business is your day job and not ours. So between us we should be able to work out a solution that keeps everyone happy.

Being our day job we have done this before, so why not make use of that knowledge? We have experiences of working in many business sectors, of regulatory requirements and a diversity of organisational cultures and sizes.

Two things we do not have:

• a single solution that covers everyone
• a closed mind set to new approaches

We do have:

• business continuity professionals (MBCI - Members of the Business Continuity Institute) in many fields –
• strategy development
• planning rehearsals
• training
• auditing (BS25999 and ISO 27001)
• technical experts
• people who like people
• an approach of being there to pitch in and do when most needed, provide guidance when necessary and be on hand if asked
• integrity and professionalism
• an open mind to learn and share our learning.

Think more along the lines:

"I will prepare and someday my chance will come" (Abraham Lincoln)

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" (Albert Einstein).

For a serious review of your position and exposure, please get in touch and don’t keep assuming:

"We don’t have a plan so nothing can go wrong" (Spike Milligan).

It will – trust me, I am a consultant.

For further information or any questions please contact us.