PlanB Consulting are experts in business continuity management. They can provide full lifecycle business continuity management or implement parts of the life cycle.
All work is compliant with the BCI good practice guide and BS 25999.
Case Study – Scottish Power
PlanB is able to provide services that address the complete business continuity life cycle. This example of a programme set out for Scottish Power shows the parameters of what can be achieved.
Charlie Maclean-Bristol was employed by Scottish Power as Business Continuity Manager for 3 years responsible for developing business continuity for their retail division.
A major programme was carried out to improve the existing 29 business units’ business continuity plans. This involved first carrying out business impact analysis (BIA) across all business units, scrutinising three end-to-end processes and identifying the twenty-two critical processes that underpinned them. This also included identifying key internal and external suppliers/stakeholders and working with business units to develop strategies to mitigate their risks.
One of the mitigation strategies involved appointing a disaster recovery printer to cover loss of the outsourced print centre based in the organisation’s largest office. Business units were helped to develop their strategies and writing of the plans were supervised. An evaluation criteria was developed based on PAS 56 (predecessor to BS 25999), to ensure the quality of the plans.
Plans were tested during a major 4-day exercise to ensure that if a major emergency were to occur all the businesses’ key functions could be recovered within an appropriate time, and that the recovery centre could actually be set up at short notice with over 120 staff working out of the centre. Informing and liaison with key stakeholders formed a key element of this exercise. This exercise was repeated at two of other major company offices.
The MD was trained and his first line reports on how to respond to a business continuity incident and how to operate within the division’s business continuity framework. The team was tested in two exercises one involving the CEO and the second involving a full range of media and role player inputs. The exercises culminated in the development of an action plan to be presented to an Executive Director.
Throughout the project there was regular reporting, either in person or through prepared slides and papers, for the Risk Committee, Divisional Board and main Scottish Power Board on the state of business continuity presently in place.
An important part of the project was the training and development of thirty-five Plan Leaders ensuring they had the skills and knowledge to develop plans for their own business unit. This was carried out through regular meetings, workshops and a 2 day conference with internal and external speakers to help develop their business continuity understanding and to coordinate dependencies between plans.
Part of the project also involved a 6 month disaster recovery project to test all the underpinning IT systems to ensure that the critical process could continue to operate under even with the less of the main data centre.
