Leading towards Uncertainity through Business Continuity Planning

SME's must now take a more flexible approach to planning: each of them should develop several coherent, multipronged strategic-action plans, not just one. Every plan should embrace all of the functions, business units, and geographies of a SME and show how it can make the most of a specific economic environment.

These plans can’t be academic exercises; executives must be ready to pursue any of them—quickly—as the future unfolds. In fact, the broad range of plausible outcomes in today’s business environment calls for a “just in time” approach to strategy setting, risk taking, and resource allocation by senior executives. A SME’s 10 to 20 top managers, for example, might have weekly or even daily “all hands on deck” meetings to exchange information and make fast operational decisions.

Greater flexibility through planning also means developing as many options as possible that can be exercised either when trigger events occur or the future becomes more certain. Often, options will be offensive moves. Which acquisitions could be attractive on what terms, for instance, and how much capital and management capacity would be required? What new products best fit different scenarios? If one or more major competitors should falter, how will the company react? In which markets can it gain share?

As companies prepare for such opportunities, they should also create options to maintain good health under difficult circumstances. If capital market breakdowns make global sourcing too risky, for example, companies that restructure their supply chains quickly will be in much better shape. If changes in the global economy could make a certain kind of business unit obsolete, it’s critical to finish all the preparatory work needed to sell it before every company with that kind of unit reaches the same conclusion.

A crisis tends to surface options—such as how to slash structural costs while minimizing damage to long-term competitiveness—that organizations ordinarily wouldn’t consider. Unless SME'S evaluate their options early on, they could later find themselves moving with too little information or preparation and therefore make faulty decisions, delay action, or forgo options altogether.

Common sense is not common

I was having a detailed discussion with a startup entrepreneur . He has a good model along with brilliant set of products and services . Now, these products and services had a deeper inter-relation and represents a particular category of business domain . This eventually makes him a niche owner . However , I observed, that the ownership of the niche was accidental rather than intentional. So , the entrepreneur completely unaware of the niche he has created , which had a larger market potential is averse towards scaling and better monetisation of the business .

To get a niche , and then focusing on the niche to scale the model to create better monetisation is the most common sense thing to do. However , most of the startup entrepreneur having used to 'do it myself ' attitude, sometimes stops his enterprise, to move into the next level growth. It's like those parents , who find it hard to loose themselves in the growth process of the child, and step back for sometime , that the child takes more responsibility.

Infact ,I created some opportunities for this startup entrepreneur, that he can move in the next level of growth . But his operational psyche is stopping him to take an strategic role , which can lead his enterprise in next levels of growth.

Common sense is really uncommon.

Particle physics to Business Continuity planning

Thank God !! The greatest experiment of science, to unveil the mysteries of universe , is found to be safe . Yes , the 'safe' is the key word for the multibillion dollar project, as many feared that it could create some black holes, while the subatomic particles collide in the Large Hadron Collider, which could eventually create a lot of natural calamities to earth.

Though there is no such devastating natural calamities as thought by some people , however there was a strong earthquake in Iran, around the same time. Perhaps it could have no relation with the experiment .

Not much is known about the 'Higges boson' known as God's particle and the field it creates. Getting more clarity on the Higges mechanism was the principle objective of this large scale research .

But what if there are more dimensions then are our regular conception of 3 dimensional space backed by one dimensional time . Scientist expect to find new dimensions also, when this subatomic particle meets in the speed of light . If that dimension , is non-local, then obviously there can be effect of such experiment into geographically distant zones , where strong evidential relationship could not be found.


At times , I have seen these same phenomenon while developing a Business Continuity plan. There might be datas which are entitled into two seperate categories, and who don't have any oppurtunities to establish any kind of formal relationship . Still ,all of a sudden , when our Business intelligence moves in higher plane, the relationship which is so uncommon ,looks very common . This is the starting point of innovation, where a Entreprenuer gets a intuitive revelation to work in a vision which apparently looks impossible. A new pattern gets created in a disruptive fashion. That is somewhere , a relation could be found with the act of Business strategising, and finding substructures of subatomic particles alongwith thier interplays.