KPMG recently launched its first South African business continuity management (BCM) survey. Conducted telephonically and through selected interviews, the survey focused primarily on the manufacturing and financial services sectors, also including mining, retail and social services. Annual turnover of respondent companies ranged from R100 million to R30 billion.
Industry focus
BCM relates to the management of risks of interruption to a company`s business processes, achieved by identifying the risks, understanding the business impact, and deciding on and implementing strategies to mitigate these risks. The strategies may include acceptance of the risks, implementing preventative measures or implementing plans to recover the critical business processes should an interruption occur.
Key findings from the survey are noted below, with a full copy of the report available on request:
* 76% of the companies surveyed have business continuity plans in place, either locally or internationally. However, only 45% were satisfied with the level of training given to staff.
BCM plans
* 61% have not fully integrated their business continuity plans with their existing change management procedures. As changes are made, the plans become rapidly out of date which impacts negatively on the effectiveness of these plans.
Level of integration
* 57% spend R1 million or less on business continuity, with 9% not having any budget at all. The survey also revealed that at least 40% would experience over R50 000 worth of loss per hour should a disruption occur, which does not necessarily include the reputational impact.
BCM budgets
Estimated disruption cost
* 64% indicated that funds are allocated to business continuity on a case-by-case basis based on individual needs, while only 26% based this funding on the importance of data and systems.
* 81% were concerned about hardware failure and 78% about software failure.
Areas of concern for BCM
* Business disruptions in the last 12 months were caused mostly by power outages and human error yet only 31% and 23% respectively indicated that these were major concern areas.
Business disruptions that did occur
While 76% of organisations surveyed do have business continuity plans, it appears as if not all are being kept up-to-date and hence may not be as useful as the companies would like.
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