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How to Evaluate BC/DR Consultants

Five questions to help weed out the posers from the real deal. Plus: a checklist of topics a BC/DR consultant should know.

"We're not out there as evangelists anymore trying to convince people to do this. There's now a genuine understanding that business continuity [planning] is a part of business, and that's good," Thornton says. While that creates more competition for consulting firms, these in-house groups still need coaching, assistance and "spot help," he adds.

BC/DR planning consultants include large firms like Accenture, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, EDS, Booz Allen Hamilton and IBM Global Services. There are also dozens of boutique consulting firms—regional and niche players that just focus on business continuity planning.

How can you be sure that the consulting firm has the expertise to fill in your business continuity gaps? Here are five questions to ask when choosing the best business continuity consultant for your company.

1. Do you know what you need?
Good BC/DR planning starts with understanding what your exposures are and making a good decision on recovery strategy. If you've got a solid strategy, developing your plans becomes very straightforward. The solution may not be in place, but it's on the way. Now you can develop plans to execute that strategy.

"The most critical part of the whole process is your business impact analysis, including the risk assessment," Hoppenjans says. "That's where you need to spend most of your time. If your consultant tells you differently, [that's a problem]. Business impact analysis is the key to your entire plan."

Consultants should also perform a recovery option study to determine these priorities. Some consultants will perform a business impact analysis and identify the exposures and impacts to expect in a disaster. But they won't describe how to solve those problems. Make sure the consultant is willing to outline your recovery options and the amount of time each option will take.

2. Will the firm present several options?
If you go to a company that provides big-name technology solutions and consulting services, "why would it surprise you what their answer should be?" Thornton says. There are a lot of options out there, and consultants should present several options for business continuity solutions.

"When it comes to business continuity, it's about planning and services, and it should be less about technologies," says Stephanie Balaouras, analyst at Forrester Research.

"It's your strategy for responding to business disruption and covers people, facilities and technologies. It covers everything from pandemic planning to 'Microsoft Exchange is down.'"

Firms that offer BC/DR planning and consulting services should be able to help you do a business impact analysis, identify critical business processes, map all the dependencies and define how critically you need them, and what the impact would be on revenue. "When you understand that, you can build a business case and invest in the right solutions," she adds.