Business Continuity at Somerfield
Laura Pearson, who manages Business Continuity Planning at Somerfield says few businesses have the resource to recover every element of the business following a major incident. The reality is that in a disaster situation, many of your business processes become 'nice to have' rather than 'must do'. So the key is to take a more focussed and pragmatic approach
Many businesses believe that to adequately protect their complex operations, their contingency plans need to be complex too. How else can we ensure that all of our business processes can remain intact following a disruptive incident? For retailers like Somerfield, if we lose all of our systems, or a depot is taken out of action, how do we make sure we don't fall behind our competitors in the latest price war? How do we keep our promotional offer attractive to customers? How do we maintain visibility on sales for key decision-makers? What about our home delivery operation? And our responsibilities to the British Retail Consortium…
The answer is, we can't. Few businesses have the resource to recover every element of the business following a major incident. The reality is that in a disaster situation, many of your business processes become "nice to have" rather than "must do". So the key is to take a more focussed and pragmatic approach.
At Somerfield we've gone back to basics when it comes to Business Contingency Planning (BCP). Yes, our supply chain is complex. Yes, we have over 900 stores, spanning the length and breadth of Britain, and we sell 30,000 products to over 1 million customers, 365 days a year. But in simple terms, what does Somerfield do?
We buy beans, and we sell beans.
So of the tens, even hundreds, of complex processes that enable us to do this each day, only a fraction are "Business Critical", that is, our "must do" processes that are absolutely crucial to us buying beans and selling beans, and keeping our supermarkets trading.
Having identified these Business Critical processes, we've stripped our BCP down to a series of simple templates, one for each process. Each lists the people, equipment and IT systems needed to execute that process in the no-frills environment of disaster recovery, and the timescale within which we need to recover it. We've rejected the traditional "comfort blanket" approach to BCP, choosing not to produce a complex tome of prose which, though impressive when presented to the board, few managers can easily make use of in an emergency. Our BCP is simpler than this, much easier to use, and therefore far more effective.
We've eliminated scenario-based planning, and simply planned for the worst case scenario. So following an incident or systems outage, we can identify which processes are impacted, immediately see whether they're Business Critical, and therefore whether we even NEED to recover them urgently. If we do need them, they can quickly be implemented by referring to the relevant templates. And as the templates are linked to our corporate risk assessment, we can assess the impact of losing that process and make sure we act appropriately.
By taking this approach, we've simplified the response to any incident, whether it's a flu pandemic, a national power shortage, a major product issue, or a fire at head office. Has our ability to keep beans on shelves been impacted? If the answer is yes, implement the BCP.
As a supermarket chain we're very much in the public eye, as we're a visible presence in most people's local town centre. As a key provider of staples such as food, water and fuel, we are often called upon to provide support to communities that have suffered major incidents, when our own supply chain is under pressure. The fuel crisis in 2000, last summer's floods, and the bluetongue outbreak in the autumn all presented challenges to retailers. Throughout each one, Somerfield was able to maintain product availability while offering additional help to the community, such as ensuring emergency services vehicles didn't run out of fuel, or donating bottled water to residents hit by floods.
When such events strike, it's crucial that we can we continue to provide the goods and services needed by local people. Our robust BCP ensures that this can happen, leaving our people to focus on their day jobs, whether that's serving our customers, managing fuel allocation between forecourts, guaranteeing safe products on our shelves, or carrying out repairs to our shops.
As long as we can keep beans on shelves and stores trading, we assure business continuity. The same principle of Business Continuity Planning can apply to any business. For Somerfield it's buying beans and selling beans. For an airline it's checking-in passengers and flying them safely to their destination. For a call centre it's making calls and receiving calls. Be clear about your core business and its critical elements. Know your beans. And if you can protect those, you protect your business.
Laura Pearson manages Business Continuity Planning at Somerfield and presented at this year's Business Continuity Conference in London's Excel.
For more information about Somerfield please visit www.somerfield.co.uk
