This is part 1 of a two-part blog series about executive sponsorship for business continuity programme success. In part 1, we take a look at the benefits of executive sponsorship, and in part 2, we’ll share some great ideas about how you can choose the right sponsor for your programme.
It’s no secret that many business continuity programmes run into obstacles that prevent them from being as successful as their leaders hope they’d be.
There are a lot of reasons, including (but not exclusively):
- Not understanding organisational goals and aligning business continuity objectives
- Lack of financial resources
- Lack of tools and team members
- Building too complex of plans at the beginning (all or nothing approach)
- Not understanding your organisation’s critical functions, assets, or suppliers
- Not focusing response and recovery plans on disruptions that could actually impact your organisation
- Set-it-and-forget-it mentality that doesn’t update plans or processes as your organisation changes or scales
And one of the most important (and recurring) issues that often leads to business continuity programme failure: lack of executive support.
According to our Business Continuity Benchmark Study, organisations with a high-degree of executive support are nearly three times likely to have successful business continuity programmes.
Don’t Flip the Pyramid
In many organisations, there’s a push for more team involvement and inclusivity for change management. That’s because, for a lot of organisational changes, flipping the leadership pyramid on its head makes sense. Instead of starting with a top-level mandate, team members —traditionally at the bottom of the organisational pyramid—rally to think through, develop, and plan for changes that directly affect the work they do. Often, these processes are well developed before a presentation to leadership.
Many times, that works great. Dotting all the I’s and crossing all the T’s is often a good approach to get leadership to come on board and provide support for a new initiative.
But, for business continuity success, you need a bit of a hybrid approach.
Adopting a top-down only mandate might hamper programme adoption throughout your organisation. Employees might be hesitant to adopt your changes if they don’t understand the “how” and “why” behind it.
Conversely, building it from the ground up might leave you a bit like little Oliver Twist, where you’re constantly re-approaching your executives with, “Please, sir (ma’am), may I have some more (resources, funding, support)?”
Start at the Top, but Expand
The most successful business continuity programmes have organisation-wide buy-in and support. To help get you on that path—and before you build your programme’s foundation—seek out an executive sponsor from your organisation’s leadership team.
This sponsor will be key to ensuring your programme has the team, resources, time, and financial support to be successful.
By bringing an executive leader into your programme at the get-go, you can be better poised to mitigate many of the issues that arise when leadership questions the validity—and necessity—of a new (or enhanced) programme and related support.
Another benefit of an executive sponsor is the ability to align your business continuity programme goals with your overarching organisational objectives. Programmes with this core alignment tend to see more programme success—not just for response and recovery effectiveness—but also in building that organisational buy-in we just mentioned.
An executive sponsor can also serve as a guide point to help you more accurately pinpoint your organisation’s most critical systems, functions, team members, vendors, partners, and key stakeholders. Your sponsor can also play a great role in communicating information not just to your supporting leadership teams, but also your organisation’s board of directors and other influencers. Increased exposure to top levels of your organisation can result in easier paths to getting the resources you need.
Manage from the Middle
Of course, your executive sponsor won’t lead the day-to-day management of your business continuity programme. You’ll need a programme manager for that.
Your organisation may choose to have a single manager as part of a centralized business continuity programme—one that relies on the expertise of business continuity professionals—or your organisation might determine your programme is better managed with a decentralized approach with programme oversight shared across business continuity plan owners or department heads. Not sure if a centralized or decentralized programme is right for your organisation?
Here are a few other benefits of adding an executive sponsor to your business continuity programme:
- Your executive sponsor can facilitate the risk assessment that supports your programme development, and, as you encounter issues over time, will serve as the person who decides if your organisation will mitigate, accept, or reject risks associated with your business continuity programme and plans.
- Your executive sponsor can evaluate overall programme performance, helping to find gaps and weaknesses where the programme fails to meet goals or doesn’t align to other organisational objectives.
- Your executive sponsor can cut through red tape to ensure you have adequate resources to support your programme.
- Your executive sponsor can serve essentially as a cheerleader for business continuity, communicating its value and expectations across your organisation to encourage successful adoption, implementation, and use.
Securing Your Sponsor
So now that we’ve taken a look at some of the many great reasons why your business continuity programme can benefit from executive support, next up is a look at how you can find the right person to serve in that role for your team. Keep an eye out for part 2, coming soon.
Are you considering starting a business continuity programme for your organisation or see the value of adding an executive sponsor? Connect with a Riskonnect advisor and we’ll be happy to help.
