The threat environment is getting more intense and stakeholder expectations for our organizations’ resilience and availability are higher than ever. Fortunately, modern business continuity (BC) software platforms can help us tame our toughest continuity challenges.
You’ve probably seen that old sign, most likely behind the counter of a local business with a can-do attitude: “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.” Sometimes it seems as if the tasks we are expected to tackle as BC and operational resilience (OR) professionals fall entirely within those two categories: difficult and impossible.
The challenges organizations face today in terms of being able to maintain operations under pressure and recover quickly from disruptions are greater than they’ve ever been. The threat environment is getting fiercer (thanks to extreme weather, global turmoil, cybercrime, and the rest). At the same time, customers have higher expectations regarding the resilience and availability of the organizations they patronize. (I wrote about the ramifications of the always-on world in my most recent post, Beyond BC: An Always-On World Requires Operational Resilience.)
Fortunately, over the past several years, a new generation of BC and OR software has emerged that can help organizations tame these challenges. They do this by streamlining core tasks, improving visibility, and supporting smarter decision-making.
The current software landscape includes a broad spectrum of solutions—from large enterprise-grade platforms packed with features to more agile to more streamlined, less demanding offerings.
The key to success in implementing a BC software solution is not finding the “best” tool. It’s finding the solution that is the “best fit” for your organization, based on your industry, size, culture, resources, BC office headcount, etc. There is a good solution out there for every organization, but no one tool is best for all organizations. (And it’s still the case that smaller, simpler organizations can often manage just fine using general software such as Word and Excel.)
Our own platform, BCMMetrics, has a look and feel that reflects its origins. We originally designed it to be used by MHA Consulting staff in conducting client engagements. Our consultants still use it every day in their work with organizations of all industries and sizes, all around the world. These beginnings gave the platform a lean, clean functional character that it retains to this today. As we like to say, It’s business continuity software for companies that mean business.
What these tools share is a commitment to helping continuity professionals overcome their biggest hurdles, whether it's staying organized, conducting BIAs, running exercises, or managing incidents.
Let’s get back to the issue of challenges.
Most likely, if you asked six BC practitioners or consultants what the toughest challenges in BC are, you would get six different answers—but there would probably be a lot of overlap.
Below is my list of the six toughest challenges in BC, together with some remarks on how a BC software platform can help in managing them.
One of the toughest as well one of the most important things in BC is knowing where your organization stands in terms of readiness. If you don’t know how compliant you are with your chosen standard—if you don’t know where your gaps are—how do you know what you need to work on to improve your readiness or pass your audit? Answer: you don’t. Knowing where you stand is a prerequisite to closing gaps, achieving compliance, and increasing readiness. It’s also a very tough kind of insight to gain.
How software can help: BC software platforms like BCMMetrics offer built-in tools for assessing compliance with frameworks such as ISO 22301 or FFIEC. They let you track readiness metrics, pinpoint gaps, and measure and predict improvements over time—all with real-time dashboards and automated reports. This turns a vague sense of “where we stand” into a clear roadmap for action and accountability.
Accurately and efficiently identifying the organization’s most critically time sensitive systems, processes, and applications is one of the most important things in BC. It’s also one of the toughest. The BIA process works, but doing BIAs well is challenging at the best of times. For inexperienced people it can be a minefield. It’s easy to alienate co-workers and easier to get things wrong. And if you do a poor job with your BIAs, then everything based on them (i.e. your whole program) will be compromised.
How software can help: The right BC software can simplify and standardize the BIA process. It can walk users through data collection in a structured, repeatable way, helping them gather the right information, ask the right questions, and avoid common pitfalls. It also makes it easier to compare impacts across departments, generate reports, and visualize interdependencies—all of which make it easier to prioritize what really matters and get buy-in from stakeholders.
BC programs have a way of getting very messy very quickly. Plans are commonly stored in multiple locations. They frequently get out of date. The updating process breaks down. Critical contact information grows stale. There’s confusion over where documents can be found. Often, when people need BC documents most, they either don’t know where they are, they’re prevented from accessing them, or they’re obsolete.
How software can help: A centralized, cloud-based BC software platform serves as a single source of truth for your continuity plans, contact lists, and critical documents. It helps ensure version control, access control, and accountability. Automated reminders prompt regular updates and exercises while permissions settings make sure the right people can always find (and only edit) what they need. All of this means your program stays cleaner, more current, and more accessible.
BC programs stand or fall based on the support they receive, or don’t receive, from people outside the BC office: management, IT, and the business units. The resilience effort depends on these groups for resources, data, insight, and major-league cooperation. But gaining these groups’ support is absolutely essential—and famously difficult.
How software can help: The right software makes it easier to engage stakeholders by simplifying their roles in the process and clearly demonstrating value. Easy-to-understand dashboards, visual reports, and task assignments help business units and executives see what’s happening and why it matters. When people can see the data, the gaps, and their role in fixing them, they’re more likely to get on board.
Implementing a solid, ongoing program of tests and exercises is critical for validating your BC measures and identifying and remediating gaps in equipment, procedures, training, and awareness. It’s also very difficult to achieve. Designing the program, getting others to participate, and sticking with your testing over the long haul are all heavy lifts. But if you aren’t testing and validating, you don’t really have a BC program; you have a BC daydream.
How software can help: BC platforms can make planning, scheduling, and tracking tests much easier. They let you assign roles, define objectives, and document outcomes in one place. You can log lessons learned and create action items for improvement—all while building an auditable record of your exercise program. This makes it easier to maintain momentum and demonstrate ongoing improvement to auditors and executives alike.
When a real incident hits, time is short, stress is high, and mistakes are costly. In those moments, organizations need to be able to execute—not hunt down documents, try to remember who’s in charge, or waste time figuring out what to do next. Unfortunately, many organizations still rely on scattered documents, outdated contact lists, and informal communication chains to manage events. The result: slower responses, greater confusion, and missed opportunities to contain the damage.
How software can help: Modern BC software platforms support incident response by giving teams immediate access to response plans, role assignments, and critical contact information. They provide built-in notification tools, live status tracking, and check-in systems to manage teams in real time. Some platforms even support mobile access and automated escalation paths. With everything centralized and accessible, responders can focus on the task at hand—not on figuring out what the task is.
When it comes to business continuity, there’s no magic wand—but with the right software, the toughest challenges become a lot more manageable.
Business continuity has never been more important—or more complex. As we've seen, the right software tools can help us tackle our biggest challenges, from organizing documents to responding in real time to a crisis.
The best BC software doesn’t replace thoughtful leadership or strong processes—but it does help them scale. And as threat landscapes continue to evolve, these platforms will only become more essential to keeping our programs sharp, responsive, and resilient.