Establishing 'Making it Happen' as a 'Formal & Predictable' Discipline

Structural Readiness to Respond	Business Adaptation

Execution-MiH ENCYCLOPEDIA → Execution Making-it-Happen → SECTION - Resilience & Flexibility →

CHAPTER -

Results Continuity Plan

This chapter introduces a new concept of 'Results Continuity Plan' (RCP). This is part of the Execution Blueprint, whereby an organization has to have a Results Continuity Team, which can come into action, wherever there is a serious threat to the results, due to major change in the assumptions. RCP also looks at 3 or 4 most probable scenarios and lays out the possible approach to respond to the same.

Topics

What is Result Continuity Plan?

Results Continuity Plan (RCP) is a new concept introduced by Execution-Making it Happen practice. In conventional terms BCP (business continuity plan) is used to ensure a minimal operational capacity in the event of a disaster. Results Continuity Plan (RCP) is used to ensure the best possible assurance of business results in the event of a significant internal or external shock to the business assumptions. Just like BCP you have contingency plans, invoking and revoking processes, create RCP teams and defining their roles & expectations.

Developing Results Continuity Plan

Enterprise Results Continuity Plan (RCP) is developed by a central RCP champion (typically head of Execution Discipline), by co-ordinating with individual functions and process-owners. The RCP champion should report directly to the execution-team and works with CFO or CEO. The first step is to lay the foundation with Business Scenario Response Matrix, which also represent RCP strategy. This is followed by the detailing each business scenario, the early warning signals pointing to a given scenario, the response steps to be taken, the check-points for deciding roll-forward or roll-backward plan. Unlike a BCP, there can be many more possible business scenarios for which the response has to be made. The smart way to create you RCP is to create some common broad-base response against wide range of business scenarios

Implementing Results Continuity Plan

Unlike a BCP, the success of results continuity plan also depends on the way we do our day-to-day business. The inherent **flexibility & resilience of an organization will determine the readiness of RCP to a great extent. Just like BCP, an RCP should be taken through the test run for certain scenarios. Implementing RCP is true test of cross-functional co-ordination and management.

Results Continuity Plan Scenario Management

RCP business scenarios are typically the ones which impact the **money-making machine of the company. Therefore most of these scenarios, which be touching more than one function or a process. These enterprise-level scenarios will range from being a pure operational scenario to a severe economic downturn. The initial response to a scenario is to bring in the right people together and to place the downstream staff on alert. One also needs to activate the war-room with all the proper infrastructure as the decision making will need to be much faster.

Results Continuity Plan Decision Management

The decisioning matrix during a RCP implementation will be different from business-as-usual state. Depending on the business scenario, the managers could be more empowered or the decisioning could be placed to higher levels. In other words, if the response is to exercise greater caution, the decision-matrix could become tighter and if one needs a faster move, the same could be more liberal.

Invoking/Revoking Results Continuity Plan

When to invoke RCP and when to roll it back to business as usual can be tricky. Here, the role of early warning signals becomes extremely important. The early warning signals have to be so designed so that not only they provide a leading indication but they also cross-validate the observations.

Regularizing the Results Continuity Actions

An organization may realize that it may make more sense to regularize many of so called contingency responses. The Results Continuity plan includes steps like significant cost-containment, reworking the contracts for ensuring greater variability, rationalizing sites & products etc...Some of these response actions will make sense in business-as-usual state as well. Therefore, the entire RCP preparedness not only helps an organization to safe-guard its business performance, but also accelerate it.