Business continuity benchmarking tool launched

The free service, available from business advisory firm Deloitte, allows firms to gauge their recovery capabilities against others, and receive updates on a regular basis. The overall aim is to help businesses improve their business continuity management.

Companies are initially asked to complete a confidential online survey. Individual responses are not shared with others, but overall results are aggregated to provide comparative data, said Deloitte.

Those companies participating will receive a customised annual report comparing their responses to industry and to "geographic peers".

Rick Cudworth, Deloitte's head of business continuity and resilience, said: "This survey offers organisations the ability to benchmark key processes - for free - against other major corporations and small-to-medium businesses across industries and around the globe.

"By making data in an area like business continuity planning and management more dynamic, up to date and readily available, enterprises all over the world will have the ability to benchmark themselves against other organisations in very important areas such as crisis management, leadership and governance, life safety, training, IT disaster recovery, facilities and infrastructure."

Key comparisons

The survey compares business continuity management programmes against "key metrics", such as:

• The maturity of business continuity and disaster recovery preparations

• Staffing and organisational structure

• Programme budgets

• Recovery Time

Rick Cudworth said that as well as using the the benchmarking system to assist with internal reporting - such as to the board of directors or other business units - it could also help to demonstrate recovery capability to partners in the supply chain and other "external sources".

"Our goal is to keep the benchmark data current and relevant," added Mr Cudworth. "Viewing this data should be a key tool in every organisation's overall business continuity strategic planning process.

"Some may want to see updated benchmarks every month, others may prefer only an annual comparison. In any case, there is great power in having frequently updated information at a manager's fingertips."

Companies can participate in the business continuity management benchmarking survey and compare their continuity programmes here.