Less than 40% of organisations are testing and updating their plans annually. This is according to research by IT and work area recovery provider, Phoenix, which believes there may be a perception that business continuity management is a complex, costly and time-consuming process to maintain.

To address these inhibitors, Phoenix has developed a complete end-to-end managed service designed to meet any requirements across the entire business continuity process from business impact analysis (BIA) and plan creation to annual rehearsals and plan maintenance.

Under the umbrella of a fixed price package, organisations looking to outsource their entire business continuity process have access to a combination of one-on-one consultation, specialist planning software tools, as well as the option of a complete managed service that allows any organisation to meet the requirements of company-wide BCM, IT disaster recovery and work-area recovery.

The package consists of three core elements. Users will have access to BC practitioners and consultants who can offer advice and support for all stages of the business continuity planning process from those looking to design and implement their first plan, to those looking to seek counsel in light of an emergency or as part of a crisis response. In addition to this, customers will also have access to Phoenix’s BCM software, Shadow-Planner. Users struggling to maintain costly and complex in-house teams can outsource the entire process to Phoenix, which, as part of its new offering, will provide an an end to end business continuity solution.

Paul Gant, head of BC Managed Solutions at Phoenix, says the move by Phoenix to offer a complete BC outsourced solution, was an opportunity to provide customers with an end-to-end offering that removed the tradition pain-points, which existed around business continuity planning:“Many organisations ‘sleep walk’ in terms of their BCM arrangements, often settling for the minimum and failing to update their plans.

“Moreover, BCM is seldom seen as a business priority, with responsibility for BCM often passed from person to person as an unwanted project, or is inherited by the IT department who often don’t have the risk and crisis management skills required."

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