The author mentions that BC specialist jobs are “…so new that, although they’re starting to be recognized, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t yet have data on them.” View the full article here.

Interesting, because BC planning has definitely been around for more than 10 years. However, business hasn’t always been the main focus – it has traditionally been an IT function.

With the right software and expertise, today’s superior business continuity planners are  true risk managers at their organizations. They develop plans that recover people, IT, and assets quickly when a disaster strikes. They have powerful plans that can be used immediately during an emergency to mitigate loss.

Ensuring that you are a strategic business continuity planner - and not just an “IT-guy” or “document generator” – can put you on your CEO or president’s radar as a company leader. We see this trend with our clients today, and this momentum can help our profession prosper for many years down the road.

According to the MarketScope, “having current and effective recovery plans is the key to success during a disaster, and these tools are ‘ground zero’ for effective crisis and business recovery. We anticipate adoption to grow in the next five years, given the increased focus from government agencies — federal, state and local — as well as private-sector preparedness initiatives.”

“We strongly agree with Gartner’s prediction of growth in the BCM market, and are excited to be recognized in the MarketScope by such a prestigious research firm,” says Frank Perlmutter, president and co-founder of Strategic BCP. “We’ve seen more and more BCM planners deploy powerful software tools like ResilienceONE and move away from document-based BCM plans and traditional bulky, tedious software programs. Utilizing automated, business process-based methods for determining risk and downtime is imperative to business recovery and loss mitigation.”

According to the report, “Gartner recommends using a BCMP tool as early in the BCM program’s life as possible, because of the benefits of standardization, centralization of business operations data that exists nowhere else in the organization, and the ease of updating recovery plans to ensure that the most-current business and IT practices are addressed.”

“BCM planners – now more than ever – need to prove their worth to the executives and colleagues using their plans,” says Perlmutter. “Any BCM planner that is simply organizing documents, distributing long surveys, and spending hours configuring confusing software is putting their job at risk. As the MarketScope depicts, automated, intuitive software is vital for BCM planners trying to recover their IT, people, and assets when a disaster strikes – and increase their value at their organizations. We believe ResilienceONE meets that criteria.”

According to the MarketScope, customers of companies receiving a “Positive” rating are advised to “continue planned investments,” and potential customers are advised to “consider this vendor a viable choice for strategic or tactical investments, while planning for known limitations.”

Strategic BCP offers demos of its ResilienceONE® BCP software for the media, business continuity planners and consultants, and executives from organizations of all sizes, from small to mid-sized companies to global enterprises. Please email contact@strategicbcp.com for more information.

About Gartner’s MarketScope Process

The MarketScope is copyrighted 2010 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The MarketScope is an evaluation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the MarketScope, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

This promotion allows BCP pros using traditional document-based software – like LDRPS – to switch to ResilienceONE® for free for the term of their current contracts. Participants can also lock in 2009 pricing for future contracts.

We’re also offering a complementary Data Migration Analysis to determine the validity of users’ current data and help map it over to ResilienceONE®.
Join the leaders in the industry who have made the switch to the best BCP technology in the industry, ResilienceONE®.  Get more information here.

Emergency planning expert Kevin Nixon tells CIO magazine that BCP should be in the middle of these plans.

See the full article here: http://www.cio.com/article/494883/WHO_Declares_Swine_Flu_a_Pandemic_Now_What_