C-level execs need to clearly define accountability and ownership of business continuity services within an organisation or risk placing their business in a very exposed position, states Paul Gant, head of business continuity managed solutions, at Phoenix.

Historically the attitude from organisations towards business continuity has been met with a fail and fix mentality, however, disasters such as Hurricane Sandy in the US and the London riots have forced C-level execs to demand action to ensure their business remains safe and operational, but in light of this questions have arisen over who is responsible to ensure this.

“An effective business continuity and IT disaster recovery plan will keep a company operational in the most testing of times, whether it’s the extreme of severe weather like flooding or a hurricane, civil unrest, a simple power failure, or hardware or software glitches.

“All organisations will have some sort of contingency plan in place in the event of a disaster but these tend to have an emphasis on recovery in light of an incident as opposed to resilience which focuses on protecting against incidents in the first instance – and this is where the mindset needs to change.

“In light of incidents such as Hurricane Sandy and, to an extent, the London riots, as well as demand from customers, auditors and the supply chain, organisations are coming under increased pressure to implement an effective continuity plan that addresses the issue of resilience, and as such C-level execs are being forced into assigning ownership.

Phoenix is seeing C-level execs turning to IT departments to manage and implement continuity plans on top of their day-to-day responsibilities. Gant says this is largely due to the importance that IT plays within the organisation and emphasis on ensuring data, email access and network availability across the entire organisation with minimal disruption.

"For the IT departments this is no small undertaking and is often seen as a complex, costly and time consuming process. An effective business continuity plan demands multiple skills and disciplines including analytics, project management, and document creation – a lot of which lies out of traditional IT departments skill set," he says.

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