KingsBridge Blog

I always find it interesting to see how the field of Business Continuity (BC), Disaster Recovery (DR) and Continuity of Operations (COOP) is continually evolving.  Recently, I have been asked to comment on the “need” for consultants when a client already has software.  Before this month this wasn’t that big of a deal, but now it’s a hot topic that seems to be gaining momentum.  What are we seeing when it comes to having a consultant in house to complete your planning?

Let’s set the stage first.

In the old days, consultants were the only way to go since software vendors (us included) hadn’t built tools that were simple to use… Thereby requiring a  consultant to really get the BC, DR, or COOP plan into a finalized actionable state.

As time evolved the consultant was still an integral part of the process, but software vendors were getting closer to building a tool that clients could use themselves to build a successful BC, DR or COOP plan.

In the past few years, we’ve seen a shift since the software has improved allowing clients to build a plan themselves – pushing consultants out of the process. Unfortunately, 2009 happened and a lot of the people who were doing the BC, DR, COOP planning at their companies were let go or assigned to “more important tasks”.  This left the planning in disarray and inevitably the planning took a back seat.

But now we’re seeing that shift again. Because clients have been whittled down to a skeleton staff and the planning still needs to be done, we are now seeing a resurgence in the need for BC, DR, COOP consultants.  The reality is that it is still more cost effective to hire a consultant than it is to have full time staff working on the planning.

So this must mean the consultant has won the battle of survival?

Sort of…  Clients are smarter now, they are asking for a complete solution as opposed to letting a vendor push their services.  We are seeing maturity in the questions that we haven’t seen before; this is excellent as it means the clients are doing their homework and their expectations are that much higher.  Consultants and planning software are finding a good balance of being able to offer a complete solution.

In the end the clients are the winners in all of this because they are reaping the benefits of the more comprehensive solution.

KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting.  If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool.  Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business.  KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time.  For more information about KingsBridge, checkout www.disasterrecovery.com