Auditing Business Continuity: Global Best Practices (Business Continuity Management)
I was very happy to be asked to write a preface to this welcome addition to the growing library of Business Continuity learning.Why? As a practicing consultant and trainer of enterprise risk management and business continuity, it has long been a source of discomfort that so many business continuity plans simply pay lip service to real needs. Plans are often over simplistic, over-focused on particular possibilities, ill-considered and incomplete. They make implicit assumptions - about the availability of people, assets and access, for instance - without subjecting those assumptions to challenge.Around 85% of Business Continuity Plans fail when first tested. Put simply, these plans show fundamental flaws that would have prevented recovery from taking place within the required timescale.Over 50% of Business Continuity Plans are never tested. This means that those flaws have not been exposed and the plans will almost certainly fail to deliver timely recovery.These stark figures demonstrate just how misplaced are the hopes of many managers when they rely on such fragile plans. No matter what forethought is given to business continuity management, the actual experience of a disaster bears little relation to the pre-considered events and to plans developed in the relative calm of normal circumstances.Too often business continuity arrangements are based on specific disaster scenarios and would not withstand scenarios that had not been considered. But disasters are not disciplined. Chaos follows no roadmap. The unthinkable does happen.It is therefore crucial to businesses that plans are subject to stringent review. That is why I welcome Rolf von Roessing's cogent contribution to this important area. Rolf provides a comprehensive, pragmatic and deeply practical step-by-step guide to Business Continuity audit. I commend it to all who are serious about the topic.Andrew Hiles FBCI, MBCS, Director, Kingswell International, Oxford, United Kingdom