Commentary on BC Management’s “International BCM Benchmarking Report – An Exclusive Board Review on Program Maturity.”
BC Management’s 8th Annual BCM Study has included 3,000 professionals participating from more than 70 countries, and more are joining every day. Those who completed the study received a complimentary copy of the “International BCM Benchmarking Report – An Exclusive Board Review on Program Maturity.” This report highlights an overview of the study findings with a special focus on Program Maturity.
To receive this exclusive report, simply register for the study (http://www.bcmanagement.com/research/index.php), which remains open through the end of October 2009.
Contingency Planning and Management offers the following commentary of the “International BCM Benchmarking Report – An Exclusive Board Review on Program Maturity” from Kathleen Lucey, FBCI and President, BCI USA Chapter and Montague Risk Management.
There are some interesting things in BC Management’s 8th Annual Business Continuity Management Study. This is basically a self-assessment survey, so it is not clear that the base terms used (such as those for program maturity) are understood to mean the same things among all organizations surveyed. Nonetheless, the information is extremely useful on a broad level. Special reports support customized reporting by industry, region, country and more. The graphs are terrific, and might save some time when preparing for C-level presentations.
There are some surprising findings:
- 22 percent of “Very Mature” organizations reported that contingency plans are in place for IT DR functions only; and only 28 percent of these same organizations reported some departments/divisions have business continuity plans. Seventy-three percent of these reported that they have a full-functioning Emergency Operations Center in place.
- On the subject of “Considering conducting an enterprise risk assessment for the board and/or senior management,” 28 percent of the immature organizations said yes, and only 7 percent of the very mature organizations (perhaps because this has already been done?)
- On the subject of budgeting, Very Mature organizations were again surprising: 9 percent have no defined budget at all. Curiously, the Mature organizations reported an average annual budget of about $2.5 million MORE than Very Mature organizations. (A more detailed report can give customized data relevant to specific organizations.)
- For 20 percent of the Very Mature organizations, the BC program still reports in to IT, with 12 percent reporting into Risk Management and 12 percent reporting into Operations. So it looks like there is some evolution with this reporting relationship, but still a fifth of these organizations locate the BC Program within IT. Program sponsorship within these organizations is all over the chart, with the largest (22 percent) at the Board/General Council/Executive Committee, but none sponsored by a Chief Risk Officer. Note that 7 percent of the Mature organizations and 5 percent of Average organizations report CRO sponsorship.
The study is filled with interesting data such as these, but it will really become relevant to you when the data views are customized to your organization.
This is an important step forward, and we urge you to participate in the study – it is open all year – if you have not already done so. Your participation makes the study more useful for everyone.
To take the survey, visit http://www.bcmanagement.com/research/index.php