Once your program is in place, the most important aspect bar none is maintenance. Our experience indicates that absent solid, comprehensive maintenance, a “typical” organization’s program will be sufficiently out-of-date in 12 to 18 months to threaten successful recovery. In 24 to 36 months, sub-par maintenance will require the “typical” company to completely redevelop the bulk of their program!
Unfortunately, maintenance is one of the most often overlooked and under committed aspects of DR/BC. Why? Because, while any company can sharpen their focus long enough to address pretty-much any project, few can extend that focus indefinitely to accommodate a permanent program…particularly a program that most don’t consider part of their core mission. Add-in the typical “pain” associated with maintenance and it becomes easy to understand why maintenance always seems the next thing on the To Do list.
What if you could eliminate 99% of your program maintenance forever?
Ok…you can’t really eliminate 99% of program maintenance. But you can automate 99% of it! Starting with the right plan structure and architecture can eliminate 75 – 85% right off the top. And with the right partner, that 75 – 85% can not only be guaranteed current, it can be guaranteed to contain the latest hands-on experience and best practice across many different organizations and industries. Another 10 – 15% or so can be fully automated. One of the most painful maintenance aspects is simply keeping the call list up-to-date. Imagine completely eliminating call list maintenance…automatic synchronization with your system of record – automatic detection of and follow-up for missing information – automatic detection of new hires, terminations and role/team changes – automated email update requests sent to staff – automatic follow-ups – automatic escalation to their supervisor – automatic escalation to the program administrator – etc., etc., etc! How about real-time updates to BIA data or hardware configuration changes?
Automate 99% of your maintenance and see how everyone seems to be more interested in participating in the program. And once everyone is participating, sit back and enjoy watching as your program become orders of magnitude more effective!
