Phoenix IT : New blog post - The Million Year Business Plan and Organisational Survival

How long do you expect your organisation to prosper and exist for? One year, five years, ten years, fifty years, a hundred years, or much longer? If you're building your organisation for success, then don't you want its prosperity and existence to be permanent?

Consider this, have you built an organisation that will last the test of time, prepared for the risk events that the world will throw at it? Are your risk management and business continuity arrangements ready for the long haul for continued prosperity and success?

Granted, customer demands can change and sometimes organisations find themselves left behind and unable to make a profit. For example, how many blacksmiths operated in your home area before the proliferation of the motor car? If we put these market changes to one side, is it acceptable for an organisation to fail because of an event that it could have prepared against, such as fire, flood, supply chain issue, power failure or IT failure? If you asked your shareholders, would they find it acceptable for your organisation to fail following such an event?

Surely, it's the responsibility of every organisation to keep operating for as long as it is able, which includes looking ahead for pitfalls and planning for them.

Organisations tend to think in terms of 1 year plans, 5 year plans, possibly 10 year and 25 year plans and typically may not look further than this. The short term 1 to 5 year plans focus organisations on the immediate needs of competing in the marketplace, growing the brand and making a profit. Of course, this focus is essential for staying in the black, to keep the monthly pay checks coming and for putting food on the table. The problem comes when there's no counterweight to these short to medium term plans. For example, if you amalgamate two geographically separate call centres to reduce operating costs, there may be pats on the back and champagne all round to celebrate, but is there acknowledgement that a new single point of failure has been created? How do you continue to service calls if there is a fire in the call centre? In your old business model, one call centre could potentially divert calls to the other. If you don't have a specialist business partner prepared to step in and provide the immediate office space, computers, telephones and internet connectivity then there would be an immediate and significant impact on your ability to compete. Brand and profit would suffer, perhaps to the extent that the organisation could not continue to operate.

This is a key reason why operational risk management and business continuity need to be continually on the board agenda, and considered during strategic decision making. These disciplines focus on long term organisational survival, not short term profit. They aim to build resilience into the operating model to minimise risk whilst also supporting the flexibility required to compete successfully.

You can make a commitment to organisational survival and place it at the core of business strategy by making this statement in the business continuity policy, and by ensuring that the policy and business continuity programme is actively owned and sponsored by the board.

Would you save money on your home by using cheaper building materials that are a fire hazard, putting you and your family at greater risk? Would you save money on your car by removing the roll cage to make it lighter and burn less fuel, but be far less prepared for an accident? Equally, organisations seeking longevity should ensure that they think of organisational survival, operational risk and business continuity at the core of their business plan, to balance the immediate need for profit with securing long term profit and survival.

Write a million year business plan. It can contain one sentence "We will still be here and still prospering, despite the trials and tribulations we will encounter over time."