… heritage or legacy BC?

I find myself using the term “traditional” Business Continuity often. But is really doesn’t convey the meaning I intend.

So which term should we use Legacy BC or Heritage BC?

Yesterday Jan Husdal posted a comment on my “… the meaning of resilience is vague“. He made the observation that there is really little difference between resilience and traditional BC as they are both concerned with the same end.

Perhaps they should be, but the key is that when I talk about traditional BC I am really referring to the way it is practiced. It is about the silos, not society.

Take the specific example of BC responses to the idea of a worst case pandemic. Treating it as a traditional BC event to be addressed company-by-company, rather than looking at the total societal-continuity issues.

So I shall be using a new label, either legacy or heritage to describe this mode of BC thinking and practice.

If you look at the BCI definition of BC Management then it is a management discipline that establishes a framework for building both resilience and the capability to respond effectively to a disruption. At this level Jan’s comment is absolutely on the money – there is little difference.

However there are many practitioners and companies where BC Management has never been adopted. They are simply doing BC Planning, or even worse, Tick-Box Planning, but they changed the label to call it BCM.

I have consulted in these environments where it is considered out of scope to ask for evidence of suppliers BC capabilities, and the idea of looking at your suppliers suppliers is just consultants creating work for themselves.

What should we call it when people’s thinking and practice are not keeping up with the needs and dynamics of the entity they are tasked to protect. Cast your vote, is it to be

• Legacy BC, or
• Heritage BC

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