Supermarket chainSomerfieldhas simplified isbusiness continuityplan (BCP) from
42-page document to a simple set of check lists after a year-long
review.
In the past year, Somerfield has reassessed its business
processes by focusing on risk to reach a consensus about which
processes were absolutely necessary.
"There were several processes and systems that were previously
thought to be critical, but had nothing to do with getting beans on
shelves and were therefore not that important," said Colin Clark,
head of corporate business control at Somerfield.
"For the first time, Somerfield had full documentation of all
its processes, who did them, and how important they were to the
business," he said.
"Organisations need a BCP that can be done in the real world and
can be kept up to date easily as part of its annual risk
assessment," said Clark.
Somerfield started the process by working out exactly what it
did as a business, deciding what it really needed to do to carry on
doing business, and then finding ways to protect those truly
critical processes.
Clark, who will be speaking at
Business
Continuity Expo in April, said that organisations can not have
a BCP unless they understand what their businesses do.
"Few businesses outside individual work streams actually know
what goes on within each function and how they interact unless they
have done a corporate risk assessment," he said.