4 Business Continuity  Challenges Faced by SME Organisations

Business continuity and cyber security raises several specific challenge for SMEs– but for most, it’s not competence that’s the problem. It’s that the vast majority of available information on creating business continuity & cyber security capabilities references practices and procedures used by large, complex organisations.  The same goes for the frequently referenced standards, frameworks and “good practices” – all have been developed by specialists who have obtained the majority of their experience in very large organisations.  That’s why most of the material and guidance available to SME organisations appears to have such limited relevance.

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So, if you are embarking on a business continuity or cyber security management project, here’s a few things that you might want to bear in mind:

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1. Business continuity and cyber security in SME organisations is normally the responsibility of people who also have a “day job”.  Consider whether the approach you are using (or being advised to follow) fits with the size of your organisation and has not been designed for larger organisations with more resources at their disposal . Consider whether the people involved with the project have the “bandwidth” to follow processes primarily designed for large complex organisations.

2. On the same note, keep in view whether you will be left with something that’s manageable going forward and not an overwheling, bureaucratic process that has little relevance to the way your organisation operates

3. Are you clear on what actually needs to be done to achieve the beneficial outcome needed for your organsation? When so much guidance is geared towards large organisations the practical “how to” becomes increasingly opaque. A straightforward roadmap with a supporting toolkit will do the job.

4. Many software tools that claim to automate development processes are too “heavy” for SME organisations to use effectively. Again, they are focused on automating complex corporate processes that just don’t exist in SMEs. In fact, most SME organisations already have all the tools they need to develop and maintain their continuity and security arrangements.

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Our approach to supporting SME organisations has been designed to address these issues:

• The delivery of our services is designed to be relevant to the size of your organisations: we don't expect you to follow rigid "corporate" processes, we work with you to unlock your organisations knowledge and apply it to creating strong and relevant business continuity capability f

• Your people are part of the process. Which means that we ensure that are engaged with business continuity development, ensuring relevance and building in-house expertise.

• We’ll leave you with something that’s maintainable going forward

• The outcome will be relevant to the needs of your organisation but still enabling you to demonstrate to any third party that you have solid, reliable and compliant business continuity management processes

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