Putting business continuity arrangements in place and documenting them in a plan is just the first step of an ongoing management process. All too frequently the plan - which may have been produced using the services of expensive specialists - becomes outdated as staff and organisational changes challenge many of the original assumptions contained in the plan. Over time the value of the original investment in creating the plan is completely eroded – in short, the plan becomes obsolete and irrelevant. Significant re-investment will then be required to update outdated plans and arrangements. And all the time the commercial pressures of demonstrating that business continuity plans are "fit for purpose" to existing and potential customers continue to increase.

Although these challenges are generally well understood, the operational impact associated with the never ending task of constantly monitoring contact details, planning issues, testing and tracking follow up issues can be overwhelming. Some organisations assign dedicated business continuity management staff to these activities - but it is a luxury few firms can, or indeed, want to afford. Other organisations may add Business Continuity to the already burgeoning list of responsibilities held by Facilities Managers, Security Managers or Regulatory Compliance Specialists, who have neither the time nor resources to shoulder this added burden.

By subscribing to our managed service, you retain full control of your business continuity plans whilst we maintain them on your behalf, leaving your key staff free to “get on with their day job”.

Our managed services are based on a powerful systems platform that supports ongoing assurance and monitoring of plan content. We will undertake a number of ongoing monitoring activities on your behalf, including:

• Providing a support and advice line where you can get guidance from our consultants, via email, on business continuity related issues;
• An initial review and walkthrough of your current plan to identify any potential areas of improvement;
• Upload of your existing plans into our web based governance and assurance framework;
• Monthly confirmation of all staff contacts and their roles within the plan;
• Periodically, and according to your requirements, plan owners and deputies automatically receive notification to perform plan self-assessments;
• Ongoing monitoring of logged issues and remedial actions;
• Logging of plan exercises, results and required remediation activities;
• Quarterly status reports showing plans requiring review, plans requiring testing, contacts requiring confirmation and status of all open action items.
• An annual on-site walkthrough with one of our consultants to verify key planning assumptions;
• A "print & distribute" capability that sends new versions of the plan to predetermined mailing lists at the click a button

These aspects of our service combine to give you world class governance and assurance services for your Business Continuity plans at significantly lower cost than supporting them with internal resources.