Don't Have Business Continuity? It Could Cost You

Business continuity remains a top demand heading into 2018 across all vertical markets. In fact, it’s now a deal breaker for many companies when procuring services and negotiating contracts with supply chain partners.

Business continuity is a strategy for ensuring that a company can continue operating at full capacity in the event of a network-related disaster like fire, flood, power outage or severe storm.

It’s risky, after all, to do business with a company that cannot maintain uptime when something happens to their network. If one critical service provider goes down in a chain of suppliers, the effects could have far-reaching financial impact. As such, a growing number of businesses are now being asked to prove they are capable of maintaining uptime throughout a variety of different scenarios. 

According to the Supply Chain Resilience Report 2017, most business leaders are now considering the continuity plans of potential supply chain partners when procuring and negotiating their services.

Here are some additional findings from the report:

• 39 percent of respondents indicated they review business continuity requirements with their suppliers, and assess their ability to meet them at contract renewals;
• 36 percent of respondents claimed they schedule meetings with suppliers to review their business continuity practices; and
• Only 13 percent of businesses do not review their suppliers’ business continuity solutions.

So as we prepare to turn the corner into 2018, take some time to think about how your business would fare in the event of unplanned outage. It could be time to consider a business continuity plan to protect your company and ensure it remains operationally stable at all times.