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Shadow Planner

Business Continuity at your Fingertips.

Shadow-Planner is an award-winning planning tool that is revolutionising the way that companies control and manage risk. By providing an innovative tools and hands on consultancy support, Shadow-Planner streamlines the plan development process to make it quicker, more efficient and cost effective.

Shadow-Planner comprises a suite of integrated risk management tools operating on a robust web based system platform. The Crisis Management and Risk Management modules are supported by a number of compliance modules including health & safety, BS 7799 and PAS 56 Compliance modules.

A burgeoning client base of blue chip organisations, BII and Shadow-Planner are well on their way to becoming the market leaders in the delivery of Business Continuity services in the UK.

Shadow-Planner is being considered as the development platform for the EU funded Oasis Project to develop a pan-European security infrastructure. To find out more please click here to read the full article.

Business Continuity

Business Continuity is the term used to describe the arrangements an organisation has to ensure the continuation of services in the event of a major incident or emergency.

Most organisations have some kind of disaster recovery plan to cope with IT failure, however, the spectre of terrorism, the failure of Enron, the SARS epidemic, widespread flooding, and the recent power cuts on both sides of the Atlantic have highlighted the need for a more cogent approach to the risk of business interruption.

The following sections examine some of the key factors behind the rising profile of Business Continuity in the UK, review the issues associated with the development and maintenance of BC plans and provide some startling statistics you’d probably rather not read.

Business Continuity plans have traditionally been developed internally or, more often, with the aid of an external consultant.

The problems associated with this approach are highlighted below:

• Cost
  The cost is high and usually out of reach for the vast majority of small and medium sized businesses.

• Comprehension
  The plan is unlikely to be owned by the management team and would not, therefore, be fully understood by them, undermining its value in the event of a crisis.

• Scope
  Most plans developed in this way place undue focus on data and IT networks, leaving the other critical business processes and functions to their own devices.

• Utility
  The plan is often a lengthy document, discouraging senior managers from understanding it or even reading it.

• Accuracy
  The document usually becomes out of date quite quickly, as the business develops, and most firms are reluctant to spend yet more money on updating an already quite expensive document.

• Efficacy
  As a consequence, 'traditional’ plans rarely result in risk reduction and risk management activity, or implementation of contingency arrangements.

BC Planning at your fingertips

The Shadow-Planner solution enables businesses of any size to quickly develop a Crisis Management Plan.

Shadow-Planner delivers BC solutions that are:

• Embedded
  Shadow-Planner delivers plans that are ‘owned’ by senior managers and is therefore understood by them ensuring they work in the event of a crisis.

• Available
  Plans on Shadow-Planner are held electronically in a secure and managed environment, providing 24/365 access via the internet.

• Resilient
  Shadow-Planner is based on tried an tested principles, encapsulated in a simple methodology.

• Efficiency
  Shadow-Planner Business Continuity plans are very easy to keep up to date and don't rely on additional consultancy to do so.

• Effective
  Shadow-planner delivers significant risk management and risk reduction.

• Holistic
  Shadow-Planner helps to identify the most appropriate contingency arrangements for all business processes and functions.

A Business Continuity plan is only effective if it is current. Even when adequate resources are allocated, the demands of plan maintenance, plan testing and plan re-issue can prove onerous. For smaller companies with no dedicated Business Continuity resource, the process becomes unwieldy.

By adopting a scenario-based approach Shadow-Planner provides a planning framework to help organisations develop a clear Business Continuity policy. This is supported by an ongoing programme of development, training and review workshops that are included in the fixed cost and delivered by our highly experienced team of consultants drawn from the private and public sector.

PAS 56 and Shadow-Planner

PAS56 is emerging as the leading standard for Business Continuity Management and assurance. Although not yet a British or ISO standard, it represents industry thinking and best-practise that is applicable to any organisation looking to embed a recognised Business Continuity Policy.

Shadow-Planner addresses PAS56 in 2 ways. Firstly, the principals laid down within PAS56 are embodied within the software’s architecture. By following the processes of BIA, Risk Assessment and Business Continuity Planning, the framework is created for effective BCM. By using scheduled tasks to check that information is up-to-date, Shadow-Planner helps manage the maintenance of plans, in line with PAS56 principals.

The second way that Shadow-Planner assists is through its dedicated PAS56 Assurance module. This will be released in March 2005 has within in it all of the indicators set out in the BCI’s workbook, the information is collected across your organisation using simple web-based forms. By subscribing to this module you can evaluate your PAS56 compliance and develop strategies strengthen any weaknesses prior to audit.

If you would like to contact a member of our consultancy team today please either telephone or email;

Tel: +44 (0) 1622 618 752
Email: consult@bii-compliance.com