Case Study
Other sources of research included the BCM planning software
of the year category in the CIR annual awards, Continuity Central’s
software list and my own network of contacts. Depending on where
your organisation operates – SME, blue chip, fi nancial, education,
government, etc. – there may be some best of breed tools available
and specifi cally tailored to your industry.
Initially, we used a simple point per function for the preliminary
scoring. This led us to a ‘not so short’ list of 20 products that
potentially could match our ‘must have’ requirements. Once we
reached this stage, we used a more complex weighted scoring
system.
Researching the products
We were very thorough with our product research. Although this
was extremely time and labour intensive, it ensured that we made
sure that the selected product was the best fi t to our predetermined
Building your
requirements. One issue we had to consider was whether to adjust
the requirements at this stage because of the functionality we found
within particular products. We agreed that the requirements at this
resilience is
stage would only be amended where the project board felt that
the function – in hindsight – should have been part of the original
requirement set. As it turned out, this only happened once. ourspeciality
The product research was supplemented with peer review.
We looked through our network of contacts and reviewed the
performance of the products in action. Again online resources such
as Google groups or LinkedIn worked well, given that people have
a greater propensity to complain about a product than to praise it.
Support, help desk knowledge and availability, training facilities,
Emergency Crisis
Business
supporting documentation and company information relating to
Planning Management
trading status and fi nancial performance were all factors taken into
Continuity
consideration in our secondary evaluation criteria.
Test driving the products
Bespoke solutions to meet
At this point we had narrowed our list down to three potential
products. We undertook signifi cant research on the three shortlisted
your continuity needs:
products, two of which we negotiated demonstration versions so
we could test run against our live data – one online version and one
delivered as a local installation. The other vendor allowed us a full
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day session with one of their consultants to test drive the product at
their training and development centre.
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Usability was an important driver as we wanted to enable ˆ &YWMRIWW-QTEGX%REP]WMW ˆ 4VSKVEQQI1EREKIQIRX
contributions to be made from the subject matter experts in their
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own process areas across the business whilst retaining central
control over the rule sets but without requiring a signifi cant amount
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of training in how to use the product. We looked beyond just the
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functionality of the product for our own needs, however, as we
were also interested in reselling the solution to our customer base
and providing added value consultancy services.
Another key element of the selection process was defi ning where
the product roadmap led in the medium and long term. All the
shortlisted vendors were willing and able to show the paths there
products would take to a greater or lesser degree.
Remembering that business continuity is for life and not just
Christmas, we took a purchasing decision based over a three-to-
fi ve year investment. We did not want to select a solution to then
have to undertake the process again after two years and port all the
data into a new system because our choice had been left behind in
the market. The fi nancials were poured over by our fi nance team
to ensure the most appropriate procurement method was utilised.
Finally after some serious negotiation we procured our preferred
system.
t: 0845 094 2117
GRaHam mCkay mBCi
enquiries@steelhenge.co.uk
graham mckay, risk security and business continuity manager, brightsolid
www.steelhenge.co.uk
gmckay@brightsolid.com
www.brightsolid.com
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