The role of business continuity consulting companies in Singapore. Every company should be prepared to handle disruptions or crises in a coordinated way. In contrast, non-resilient companies can inflict economic damage not only on themselves, but also on the economy as a whole. Due to the after-effects of the pandemic, many companies have seen the necessity of business continuity management (BCM). When various crises occur, it becomes clear that many companies are not equipped to withstand such events, resulting in loss of competitiveness or closure. Companies are now increasingly investing in BCM and resiliency, which are key success factors in turn. On the other hand, the theme is as good as not to be approached outside of the company structures. ICT companies should take advantage of this circumstance and provide services or consulting in this field. Interested parties are, on the one hand, of course companies from all economic as well as public areas that have no financial scope to go through a lengthy learning process alone and, on the other hand, those that can be consulted by organizations before unplanned events occur and thus contribute to the improvement of the respective corporate culture by taking preventive protective measures. These are the services of business continuity consulting.
Importance of Business Continuity Consulting Companies
Business Continuity Management (BCM) has come out of the cold and surged into the headlines as more companies realize that they are only a fire, theft, or a failed air-conditioner away from disaster. As the concept of BCM is evolving, so is the role of the consultant; a role that is much broader and more challenging than simply carrying out system audits and drafting continuity plans. BCM can provide a golden opportunity for companies to add significant value to the business, increase customer and supplier confidence, avert disasters before they occur, and prevent negative publicity when things do go wrong. However, to fully exploit BCM’s potential, businesses are realizing that they need a wide range of expertise and a high level of understanding of their business and industry style. More importantly, as George R.R. Ross et al (1999) noted, when organizations try to apply BCM concepts to their organization, in many cases they lack the in-house capability to create and implement a successful BCM system. This means that they need to call in external help to manage this process. When it comes to deciding whether senior management should outsource the consulting role, opinion remains divided.
Today’s businesses are more complex than ever before as a result of vast innovations in technology and continuous globalization hyper competition. In the wake of the tragic events of September 11, businesses in the United States and around the world are searching for ways to ensure the resilience of their operations against new vulnerabilities which were unimaginable only a decade ago. A joint World Economic Forum and Marsh and McLennan Companies study on Global Risks 2006 revealed that while attacks on digital network infrastructures are a top concern, businesses have yet to implement thorough design solutions to address this risk. Companies that take steps now to ensure resilience or business continuity will create a competitive advantage and emerge as tomorrow’s winners. While the focus will continue to be on technology innovation, it is the success of an organization’s risk management and business continuity strategies that will ultimately determine its survival and recovery.
Assessing Risks and Vulnerabilities
The third step in the BIA (Business Impact Analysis) methodology postulates weighing various risks and deciding on what weight of each risk in an eventual company’s risk profile. At this stage, an attempt at determining how crucial the risk is for the business is made, and the BSM in collaboration with the executive body makes an evaluation on how relevant risk mitigation strategies for emergency response should be. The level of risk controls in the physical security aspects of the business operation may be tuned to the quantified threats better than other more expensive security initiatives. Each risk has to be rated in terms of what the possible impact will be if the risk materializes.
Before we can design a BCP, a business has to make the distinction of what actually constitutes a risk or threat to the business and decide how likely such threats are to materialize. The second step postulates quantifying the identified risks in terms of probable impact and related risk damages to the business. An option to starting off with the comprehensive approach will be to break the task down, project by project, putting in place a series of small highly selective risk management and risk assessment initiatives. To rate a risk’s impact, the BSM (Business Security Management) may decide that four categories should be considered: civic impacts, physical damage, financial impacts like loss of business income and reputation, and organizational impacts.
Developing Business Continuity Plans
The BCP also has to be documented so that all relevant information on how the organization will respond to specific incidents is reduced to writing and can be easily accessed and used during the time of a crisis. There are many BCP software products available, but even with these tools, the development process requires significant time and resources. There needs to be clear procedures, which guide the organization on the various actions to be undertaken in the event of a particular kind of disaster. The BCP should be developed to ensure that the organization is prepared for all the types of disasters that could happen. The BCP requirements should be embedded into the normal decision-making processes within the organization so that consciousness of the risk and disaster is always there.
Developing an effective BCP is not easy and does not take place quickly. Writing a plan will take time and resources. It requires skills not usually found within the organization. Thus, the first step should be to appoint individuals from all departments to the BCP team to ensure that the BCP will be representative of the organization’s different functional areas. Each member of the team should be aware of the key business processes and should become involved in the development of the BCP. Developing a plan will also require input from management both at the planning and implementation stages.
Training and Education
Business continuity/disaster recovery training has always been important to many IT and business professionals’ personal career growth. However, more recently, it has also been confirmed that having trained personnel in this area can significantly increase a company’s ability to properly put together a disaster recovery plan to meet business continuity needs. Higher management looks to IT to come up with a disaster recovery program to protect the business from official compliance violations and financial implications. Employees who cannot access key data can no longer function in terms of their delivery and are less able to continue sensitive data security. Therefore, it is with heavy reliance that most organizations have been searching for opportunities to keep key employees abreast of new technologies and other important security skills.
Corporate business continuity planning (BCP) requires the right kind of expertise and training to assist the BCP process to be successful. Companies can engage the services of external business continuity consulting professionals who can also work on educating the staff about the future of BCP. It is important for consulting professionals to have the right kind of soft and hard professional skills and attributes if organizations would like to achieve success. Training and education pave the way for the staff to understand the necessity of business continuity planning and help in implementing the processes which will decrease exposure to threats, minimize the chances of risks turning into disasters, and aid in the rapid recovery from unplanned events such as disasters. Training programs should highlight concepts, principles, and strategies which can be used by companies in Singapore for all staff in the department. It should also address the areas of the specific roles and responsibilities of the candidate in the formal BC planning process; it should also have clear directions regarding practical ways to support BC initiatives. These will be done by handling the key deliverable and older including the analysis of the business impact.
Future Trends and Challenges
Since the business continuity management training or certification is becoming a recognized competency and receives high profile from hiring managers, the training centers may offer more packages to improve the consulting market. Not only aim at relative basic single module training programs at the present, but also broaden the diversity of the subject. There might be an excellent business in the future. Consultants will be able to develop and enhance regulatory consultancy products and services. Some financial service firms are located in Singapore and have a mandatory requirement on compliance issues. By cooperating with the consultants, it has synergized to develop the Business Continuity Management. It may even result in a single standard and save an enormous amount of time and resources by sharing and collaborating with related business owners with similar risks and impact to achieve the compliance issues.
With increasing mature technology to communicate and deliver the consulting service at present, it allows the consulting job to be completed remotely to reduce the potential health risk, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite this, there is a potential loss from customers in the market. As the sentiment has influenced the market responses and adversely affected the business development. Therefore, the local outlook may expect to continue the demand for the skill set. On developing the consultants’ professional knowledge and offering specialty resources to maintain a high standard of service to cater to potential customers.
Embracing Technology and Digital Transformation
Digital business strategy is top on the list when it comes to technology investment priorities. The strategy aligns with the company’s goals and conditions and enables the transformation of the company’s enterprise strategies, business environment, and operation. Digital technology trends which have been used and are available for businesses, different government plans were aimed at developing a ‘digital-by-default’ approach, thus streamlining services and purchases over time. A clear approach for digital operations and technology investment allows for the creation of new markets, growth opportunities, and more efficiency via digital technology introductions. Evolves from traditional costs or innovation opportunities. Firms that enhance business operations through technology are also well-positioned to adapt and dynamically reconfigure their supply chains through their strategic supply chain networks. A more adaptable supply chain depicts how businesses can come out of the crisis ready to grasp new opportunities.
As a response to the pandemic that has put a damper on every aspect of life, businesses have been forced into digital transformation as they experienced firsthand the digitization of everything. The approach to operational resiliency must be recalibrated as it is no longer oriented towards businesses keeping their lights on but to sustain a virtual world where business boundaries create new expectations and game-changing needs new rules. The value of service delivered through cloud and service provider business continuity and risk management is essential as service capabilities continue to support team productivity. Businesses that utilize the capabilities of digital technology and cloud services to continue operations will benefit from digital tools that can support effective collaboration within and across businesses.
Accenture Consulting offers business continuity services in Singapore and other parts of the world. Accenture helps clients implement robust business continuity plans to better protect their businesses from crises. Its business consultants design, deliver, and implement strategically informed recommendations to mitigate the impact of unforeseen events on business operations and identify opportunities to increase overall sustainability and resilience. The uptake of technology in Singapore’s business community helps people and businesses stay engaged and report how digital means have changed business operations and strategies. Hence, from recent discussions, many consulting firms in other industries utilize technology for consultation.
Addressing Emerging Risks and Disruptions
Executive Education (EE) programs at a few business schools offer crash courses customized for C-level and senior business executives who wish to fortify and improve their organization’s resilience capability despite the immense time pressure and growing disruptions. To analyzing studies here. Through research, teaching, and outreach activities, these business schools have supported and contributed to the development of business continuity and resilience as an academic and professional business field.
Given the increasing disruption complexity (geopolitical, cyber, regulatory, and operational), a number of specialized and cross-disciplinary master’s programs were being initiated across Singapore university campuses: the National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, the S.R. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University, where business and security resilient knowledge have been nurtured, especially in key economic sectors such as commerce, infrastructure, technology, and security. The ‘SS550 Series of standards have been guiding and shaping the fundamental framework, management system, and assessment for national private sector organizations. The public sector agencies have adopted the ‘Australia Standard AS/NZS 5050–2010’ in managing business disruptions.
To address this gap and to increase awareness about business disruptions, the Resilience Week was inaugurated in 2014. Organized by the CDPC, relevant agencies and partners, and supported by about 70 organizations, the week-long programs started with key individual subscribers to the concept of resilience, who described it as the only survival strategy. The Belt and Road Initiative eventually drives home with them the importance of creating a more secure and secure ecosystem for businesses. Also, it advocated that one could think beyond the obvious—a safe environment, skilled labor, high productivity, easy access to neighboring foreign markets at compelling cost benefits—to consider building even stronger relationships, knowledge-based capabilities through this concurrent focus on resilient strategies impacting business communication, technology, and operational stability.
As the business environment is constantly evolving, it is important that BCP Network Members continuously refresh their knowledge on BCP concepts and management theory, new compliance requirements, and disruptions. BC4, a networking forum for BCP Network Members, organizes regular forums, conferences, and sessions to help BCP professionals, who may be largely self-regulated, to learn from subject matter experts and BCP practitioners. The BCP Network is inaccessible to the public mostly, where only a select number of topic experts and CPE members have knowledge about the activities organized within the network.
Collaborative Approaches and Public-Private Partnerships
As public administrators appreciate, there are advantages to using the government as the customer to demonstrate to the private sector the importance and comprehensive nature of public-private partnership in working together to push national-level resilience to a more mature state. The relationship is supported, and the private sector is encouraged as a strong partner in the leadership of the collective government, private sector, people, and home front resilience. It must be noted that as part of good governance, in order to avoid needless leverage of the broader role of external business continuity consultants, vendors, and service providers, it is vital to have the necessary checks and balances in place to ensure that these entities are aware of and continue to meet the regulations and requirements of the certification and government contracts.
To address the collective challenge of increasing organizational resilience across sectors and the economy, the government and private sector have demonstrated the need to engage and work with each other. Singapore is no different in this respect. The government and the private sector share a mutual interest in ensuring that their respective organizations and the Singapore business community are able to continue operating and thriving despite disruptions and changing economic landscapes. Recognizing the critical role that business continuity professional service providers play in the overall ecosystem of resilience, the Singapore government has provided some guidance in relation to government-retained service providers who specialize in business continuity services for CII-building owners and vendors.
