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It took two massive earthquakes to wake up New Zealand to the realities of natural disasters. Almost all professionals we meet, share the same key worry surrounding earthquakes impacting their business, despite the ever-present threat of cyber-attacks, supply chain issues and loss of key staff.
So, if another event of such magnitude is front and centre in professionals’ minds, why do businesses still fail to prepare? Day three perhaps may have answered this; denial.
Christchurch
The group were asked to describe some of the barriers to embedding Business Continuity (BC) within their organisation. The key word appearing was “denial”.
Denial is usually part of a more complex reason, but ultimately, it’s key stakeholders finding any excuse to keep the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) at the bottom of the in-tray.
Many businesses in Christchurch showed exceptional resilience by getting through two major events. They have found ways to crawl out of the rubble and rebuild to continue operating. So, why would they ever need a BCP?
RiskLogic and Aon put the question back on the open floor discussion that morning.
“We have to get realistic though”. During the 2011 events, there was an understanding and level of support from external parties and key stakeholders. Businesses accepted that invoices or services were going to be delayed. Everyone seemed to be in it together, and no one was to blame. However, if it was just your business that had an isolated event, like a cyber attack or reputational incident. Will those key stakeholders or clients be so understanding? Especially if your business has no BCP to use in a recovery effort.
Thankfully though, all our delegates were committed to insurance and BC. Unfortunately, they’ve learnt just like all of us that it’s rare for other professionals to be as committed to it.
What are some of the major barriers to constructing a thorough BCP that will help your business get through in times of crisis?
- Use research information to demonstrate the likely threats, like the Global Economic forum report.
- Gather data on similar businesses that have an outage that you can relate back to your own business.
- Run BC awareness sessions at your company at every opportunity, like during evacuation drills.
- Talk to your insurance brokers about being rewarded through premiums for having good resilience plans in place and demonstrate this back to Senior Leadership.
Rounding it up
After three great days across New Zealand, Aon and RiskLogic were fortunate enough to meet and support some of the most passionate professionals this country has to offer. Being able to discuss face to face what changes will come in 2019 and providing solutions to this is what makes our country so unique on a global scale.
The insurance market has never been so hard, we all must work together to make sure we are going to get insured for the future. The insurance companies aren’t just playing hardball, 40 billion dollars in natural disaster payouts occurred in NZ in 2017 alone! They, like us, need to make a profit, because if they don’t, they will disappear. If that happens, then no one will have insurance…
We don’t envisage the Aon and RiskLogic partnership stopping here. Discussions are already underway on how we can provide more world-class content and resources throughout 2019; providing more opportunities for professionals to attend seminars and obtain unique advice to help organisations get through in times of crisis.
If you don’t want to wait for that to happen, you can email us direct now to begin discussions on an insurance & continuity plan that will put you at the forefront of resiliency.
Email here: info@risklogic.co.nz
