Sometimes, often actually, I get worried about the BC industry’s habit to try and redefine commonly understood business terms to mean something different.
Take ROI as an example.
It stand for “Return on Investment”. You can read about it on Wikipedia and there would be little to surprise business folks in that article.
Simply it is a measure of revenue, gain or net profit that flows from an investment. It is used as a tool to choose between different investment options.
When you come in to talk about the intangibles returns, don’t be surprised if your Execs develop a sudden interest in their iPhones, iPads or Blackberry (somebody must still have those). And don’t be surprised if somebody with tangible ROI gets the budget allocation you asked for.
No matter how many ways we try to invent a return – if it is not financial I really think we are trying to play in the wrong ballpark. Worse, the lack of business understanding this shows tends to distract from other messages and strategies we may try to pitch in the future.
Possibly there is no return on BC without an invocation, and probably no worthwhile return without a major disruption to routine operations. More importantly how many people have activities in their BC Plan to enable the capture of financial data that can be used to calculate the ROI of the invocation? If not, then there is probably not going to be much evidence of ROI then either!
But wait I hear you say, we get a discount on our insurance premiums because of our BC Program. Great, what is the ratio and do you want your future salary to be predicated on that ratio?
Are the savings ongoing, do they continue even if we cut the BC Program this year? In that case cutting BC yields an even higher ROI.
Value is probably a better concept for us to explore as it more readily allows for intangibles. But we need to be careful of falling into the same trap. The BC Manager is not able to define the value of BC.
Value is in the eye of the beholder.
Specifically I thin we need to explore how the concept of value applies in the Agile world. Delivering value, ongoing value, would become the primary objective of the BC Program.
To maximise the value that Execs perceive in the BC Program, simply deliver the things that they find valuable. If that is compliance and governance activities, then that is the place to start. If that is not what you want to deliver – reconsider who is paying.
Once you start to deliver what Execs value, then your value to them improves – and opens doors to expanding the program and your profile.
This paper “Putting management into BCM” offers more on the subject, and there is also a webinar.
Happy BCAW!
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