The resilience challenge to the BC professionPatrick Alcantara DBCI

Senior Research AssociateBusiness Continuity Institute (BCI)

Understand the concept of resilience and

how it impacts organizations

Appreciate the role of business continuity (BC)

in the overall resilience framework

Apply the concept of resilience to practice

Today’s agenda

The headlines

• Resilience is a quality, NOT an end goal or activity. It allows organizations to advance their strategy and meet their objectives.

• BC is an integral part of the ‘protective disciplines’ which embed resilience. However, future BC practice should involve cross-boundary collaboration, understanding of networked risks and flexibility.

• Resilience should encourage BCI members to gain specific competencies that enable them to reach out and influence an organization’s strategy.

The resilience challenge to the BC profession

• White paper of the BCI 20/20 Think Tank UK Group

• The 20/20 Think Tank has an advisory and advocacy role for the Institute

• Composed of the most respected senior professionals with initial Groups set up in the UK, US and Australasia

The challenge to the BC profession…

…is to understand the changing resilience framework.

Resilience defined

• Resilience is defined as ‘the ability of an organization to anticipate, prepare for, and respond and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and prosper.’

Resilience defined

• NOT an activity• NOT an end goal• Resilience is a QUALITY of organizations.

The benefits of resilience

• Better operational decision making• Improved problem solving• Increased adaptive capacity• Maximised competitive advantage• More agile organizations

Business continuity contributes to resilience

BC is an integral discipline to resilience as it identifies threats and its impacts to organizations.

BC practice moving forward

• Integrating BC tools and methodologies with other protective functions

• Understanding networked risks better• Introducing more flexibility in BC approach and

methodology

How resilience may impact organizations

• Push organizations to better understand risks• Influence BC practitioners to think about adaptive

capacity and agility as important outcomes• Encourage ‘protective disciplines’ to come

together and promote efficiencies• Lead to greater awareness of strategic goals and

high-level outcomes within organizations• Form interdisciplinary, cross-functional teams

Key takeaways• Resilience represents a paradigm shift in the way

organizations conceptualise strategy, tactics and operations.

• BC has a role in building resilience but it requires greater collaboration with other ‘protective disciplines.’

• The growth of resilience will lead organizations to demand specific skill sets. Practitioners are encouraged to develop their competencies that will enable them to influence strategy and work towards high-level outcomes.

011 8372 3079patrick.alcantara@thebci.org

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/patrickalcantara/en

Patrick Alcantara DBCI