Disaster Recovery Journal

EXECUTIVE SUPPORT
Selling the Business Continuity
Case to Executive Management

By STACY GARDNER

If your organiza- tion has not already invested in business continuity, selling the “business conti- nuity” business case to executive management can be difficult. Many believe that since they’re already paying for insurance, investing in business continuity is paying for the same end result twice. However, getting management committed to the concept and requisite investment can often depend on how you sell the benefits, focus on your audience’s key priorities, and keep the pitch realistic and relevant. This article summarizes specific topics and techniques to help management see the value business continuity can bring to your organization.

Understand Potential Drivers and Selling Points
Benchmark Competitors/Industry Comparisons

any possible insight into your competitor’s business continuity programs or capabilities.

Some organizations publish their capabilities on their Web site or have personnel speak at business continuity conferences. It can also be helpful to stay aware of industry news, as disruptive incidents often make local, national, and industry news coverage, depending on the severity of interruptions. Monitoring realistic events that affect your industry not only brings realism to threat-related discussions, but they can also help management understand some of the impacts that can befall an organization. Depending on the depth of public information available and the organization’s performance following the event, competitor events can highlight positive effects of readiness or negative consequences of being unprepared to respond, recover, and communicate with stakeholders.

Outline the Benefits of Business Continuity

While organizations cannot predict whether or not they will experience a disruptive incident, there are many benefits that result from investing time and resources in business continuity planning. The risk assessment process, for example, helps organizations analyze potential threats, impacts and downtime to understand true exposure to threats – enabling decision-making on appropriate risk mitigation actions (particularly on single points of failure that can impact product or service delivery) or acceptance of the associated risk. Conducting a business impact analysis (BIA) helps organizations develop a deeper and clearer understanding of their most critical products and services, business activities, resources (tangible and intangible), and inter-dependencies between business activities and technology, equipment, suppliers, and personnel. The BIA process also aids in understanding stakeholder expectations and potential monetary, reputational, and operational impacts, which can help create a “prioritized and justified” roadmap to recovery. This roadmap can help apply limited resources to the most time-sensitive or priority areas following a disruption.