Getting Management Buy-In

The lucky ones among you already have management buy-in for your business continuity plans. Was it easy? Probably not, but there are ways to make it easier for the rest of you. This week's articles provide many tips on what you need to do to get management to understand that BC is not just a cost center but the path to survival.

Here are four tips to gain upper management attention. (Item #1)   How to give the board a message it needs to hear. (Item #2)   The first step in deciding how to sell BC investment to a difficult manager or director is to determine what kind of boss you have. (Item #3)  

Much has been written about getting "senior management buy in" for business continuity, but what about everyone else? (Item #4)   You have to tie BC to the bottom line to get top-level support. (Item #5)   How do you ensure that your business continuity plan, disaster recovery plan and risk assessment get the required support from the top level of the business? (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. Getting Business Continuity Buy-In

By implementing effective business continuity plans, businesses can increase their recovery capabilities dramatically. And that means they can make the right decisions quickly, cut downtime and minimize financial losses. So getting buy-in at the top is crucial. It requires professionals to have better understanding of the concerns of top management and an ability to communicate risk issues in a common language.
http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/blogs/getting-business-continuity-buy-in-p-1306/op-1

2. Making the board listen

Business continuity management enjoys the dubious distinction of being viewed as a cost centre that may never provide material value to the business. Unsurprising then, that decisions involving business continuity management don't always seem to get the airtime they deserve. This paper explores how we may be able to position business continuity management issues so they reach key decision makers quickly and with a better chance of success.
http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0729.html

3. Selling business continuity investment to the boss

One of the more difficult tasks faced by business continuity managers can be presenting investment proposals to company directors and line managers. Difficult bosses can pull the rug from under the best laid plans by refusing investment requests, but advice issued by Purdue University may offer some help in this area.
http://www.continuitycentral.com/news02654.htm

4. The Extra Mile

Forget senior management for a minute. You should be thinking about what it takes to get everyone else to get behind your business continuity program. What about middle management? How about the staff, the feet on the street? It's just as important for those people to be involved and informed. And most of the time, we don't do a good job of getting their attention, much less their involvement. It's time for BC professionals to go the extra mile, reaching out to everyone in the organization. But that isn't easy. In fact, if building and sustaining employee involvement in any area of risk management was simple, everyone would be doing it.
http://www.continuityinsights.com/articles/2010/06/extra-mile

5. Continuity Program Buy-in

Even though every business must ensure the continuity of its operations, top executives often don't want to allocate the necessary financial and other support to make a program successful, according to business continuity professionals who spoke on a panel at a Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit in Washington, D.C. But continuity executives can improve their chances of getting funding by better demonstrating how continuity is important to the bottom line.
http://securitymanagement.com/article/continuity-program-buy-0010274

6. Getting upper management buy in for business continuity!

From an ICT perspective, how hard is it to get buy in from management when it comes to a business continuity program? If you are finding it hard then you may not be explaining the situation correctly. A large failing with ICT people is the concept that when you try to sell projects to management that you focus on the technology, not the benefits and solutions that a good project will deliver to the businesses bottom line.
http://smesecurityframework.com.au/getting-upper-management-buy-in-for-business-continuity/