iJET Intelligent Risk Systems is a leader in business resiliency, helping multinational corporations and government organizations monitor, protect against and respond to global threats. They have just releases their "2008 Business Resilience Survey Results: An Insider's Look at the Current State of Risk Management, Continuity and Resiliency in Multinational Organizations".
For two weeks in May 2008, iJET International invited executives and professionals in the fields of business continuity, security, travel, HR and others to respond to a survey about their approach to risk management, business continuity and resiliency. The survey includes responses from 607 participants, representing more than 380 multinational organizations, mainly based in North America (87%), with a smaller number from Europe (10%) and Asia Pacific (2%). The majority of participants (65%) represent organizations with over $1 billion annual revenue. The remaining participants represent companies with $500 million to $1 billion (15%) and less than $500 million (20%) annual revenue.
Most participants (92%) work forcommercial businesses; the others represent federal government, Non-governmental Organizations(NGOs) and non-profits (8%, combined). A wide range of industries is represented, including: aerospace and defense, banking and finance, consumer goods, energy and utilities, health and pharmaceutical, manufacturing and business services and consulting.
VPs or executive-level administrators (CEOs, CFOs, CSOs, etc.) make up 17% of respondents. The majority of participants have Director (32%) or Manager (31%) titles.
Participants represent departments across the organization. The largest portion operates in security (38%)followed by travel (13%), risk or crisis management (12%) and business continuity or resiliency-related roles (10%). The remaining 27% of participants are distributed across administrative, business development, HR, IT, legal, finance, logistics and other roles.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Business resiliency -- defined as the ability to rapidly adapt and respond to risks and opportunities in order to maintain continuity of business operations, remain a trusted partner and enable growth -- is capturing broad interest at multinational organizations. These organizations are starting to expand focus beyond mere responses to and recovery from business disruption, to include revenue retention and growth when considering risks and business disruptions.
As a practice, business resiliency is still a work in progress. While disaster recovery and business continuity are clearly defined and established practices, approaching business from a resilient standpoint has yet to settle into one standard of practice. Definitions, priorities and perspectives vary across departments and leadership levels.
Commercial and governmental organizations also perceive threats and priorities differently.
Key findings include:
• Most organizations are well prepared for emergency response and recovery: 84% of respondents have an emergency response plan in place; 83% have a business continuity plan in place.
• While fewer organizations have a business resiliency plan in place, results indicate that a significant number (41%) f businesses, NGOs and governmental agencies are applying resources to business resiliency.
• Senior executives define top resiliency concerns differently than do other leaders in their organizations. Senior executives identify loss of revenue (38%) as the greatest concern, while directors and vice presidents tend to be most concerned about damage to reputation and brand (32% and 29% respectively).
• Customers were cited by 49% of respondents as a reason to create and maintain resiliency initiatives, suggesting that as resiliency initiatives spread, customers will likely have higher expectations and make greater demands on organizations’ resiliency planning.
• A key component of resiliency and continuity planning is communicating resiliency successes across the entire enterprise. Nearly two out of three companies (62%) communicate the successful navigation of business disruption to their employees and 41% also communicate these experiences to their customers.
• While resiliency is identified as important, obstacles to advancing the initiative exist. Top barriers to implementing stronger risk management, continuity and resiliency plans include: competing priorities (55%), disparate geography (54%) and technologies (also 54%).
• The greatest perceived external threats vary by sector. Commercial businesses identify health and infectious diseases as the greatest external threat. Government also cites health and infectious diseases, along with transportation and weather/environmental disruptions as their greatest concerns. Nongovernmental organizations are most concerned about geopolitical unrest and health and infectious diseases.
To download the full report, please visit: www.ijet.com/news/whitepapers/index.asp.
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