Tenon Rates a “10” in Business Continuity

Tenon works hard to protect client wealth, while
Shadow-Planner works hard to protect Tenon’s
business continuity.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Some people think all accounting firms are alike. When it comes to the Tenon Group, that’s simply not true. Tenon didn’t grow to be the ninth-largest accounting and business advisory firm in the UK by being like everyone else. Through its unique specialization in advising entrepreneurs – often a very challenging group – the firm establishes strong local relationships and then grows them through commitment, passion and proactive support. Tenon, with over 1900 employees in 47 offices across the UK, works steadily to protect and enhance client  wealth.

THE SITUATION

Business continuity is especially important to Tenon Group for reasons that go beyond the norm. While compliance issues were an initial driver (with regulatory bodies such as the Financial Services Agency demanding business continuity planning), at Tenon, it’s the broader business issues that take center stage. “We’re a people organization” according to Trevor Williams, Business Continuity Manager at the Tenon Group.

Rather than focusing on traditional disaster recovery, which is all about systems and data, Tenon’s view of business continuity extends to the duty of care for people. “Our focus on business continuity shows our enhanced commitment to people, whether staff or on-premise workers. That’s why we don’t just settle for doing the bare minimum,” Williams explains.

LOOKING FOR A BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING TOOL

The Business Continuity experts at Tenon Group took a hard look at whether to use an automated tool such as Shadow-Planner, or rely on more conventional ways to organization risk and recovery plans, such as using Microsoft Word and Excel documents. It quickly became apparent that, especially in a multi-
location organization such as Tenon, the use of rudimentary documents would be no substitute for a well-designed and executed plan. The reasons are threefold: structure, control and resilience.

STRUCTURE, CONTROL AND RESILIENCE - THE HALLMARKS OF EFFECTIVE BC PLANNING

Structure is of the utmost importance, especially when dealing with 47 offices. Office-Shadow gives structure to the group’s plans, and forces a discipline that helps immeasurably to minimize individual work yet allow for specific needs. Each of the offices has a similar format, allowing them to share information from the top down, yet Shadow-Planner makes it easy to tailor the plan at the local level.

Control, both during implementation and throughout the lifetime of the system, is a key benefit of Shadow-Planner, ensuring that the BC plan is updated and maintained by scheduling reviews. This is of the utmost importance, since hardcopy BC plans that are not reviewed can quickly become out-of-date, thus worthless. “Ours is a very dynamic business, so plans must be updated regularly. Shadow-Planner makes regular updating and maintenance a breeze,” explains Williams.

Finally, resilience allows the organization to actually make use of its business continuity system when it matters most. With Shadow-Planner, the system is web-based so it in the event of an emergency, the incident team would still be able to access the business continuity system from home, another office or an Internet café. This is in sharp contrast to other “systems” based on Word documents and spreadsheets, with BC practitioners scrambling to locate the backups and hoping that they have been kept up-to-date.
 

SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS

Shadow-Planner has enabled Tenon to realize significant savings on the company’s Business Interruption Insurance. By proving that the organization has BC plans in place, and that they are updated and tested on a regular basis, the group has seen premiums drop by 50% per year.

The system is also encouraging ownership of business continuity management by the business. At Tenon, each office nominates a “champion” who learns to use the Shadow-Planner tool, and is then responsible for keeping plans up-to-date at that office. Williams, in group headquarters, is thus connected to each of those teams, and is pleased to report that a number of people in the organization use the system daily.

ADDED BENEFITS

Time-savings is another welcome byproduct of Shadow-Planner. Williams built his plan in one pilot site, tested and refined it over a period of six months, and then took the plan round to 35 offices – all in one year. Based on his experience, the process would have taken several years without the product.

Tenon’s forward-thinking approach was vindicated last year during a forum sponsored by the Business Continuity Institute, of which Williams is a professional member. Three practitioners evaluated competing approaches to business continuity. One relied on Word and Excel documents, another used an automated tool, and Williams represented Shadow-Planner. He is proud to say that Shadow-Planner came out on top, reinforcing his belief that it can serve as a very valuable adjunct to a well-organized and well-managed business continuity function.  

ABOUT OFFICE-SHADOW

Established in 2001, Office-Shadow is one of the world’s leaders in business continuity management software and solutions with specialization in standards-based implementations and in the financial services market. The Company’s technical expertise is tempered with commercial experience drawn from both the public and private sectors. The result is a range of business continuity management products that are grounded in a firm understanding of how organizations actually work. Winner of the 2003 International Business Continuity Award for most innovative new product as well as of the 2006 award for best software product, and with a burgeoning base of blue chip organizations, Office-Shadow is well on its way to becoming a global leader in the delivery of business continuity solutions.

                            Trevor Williams
              Business Continuity Manager