C2 is an application designed to manage a business continuity management system from a to z. We have been using C2 since November 2017, using it to implement an ISO 22301 compliant BCMS within 12 months. Customer and technical support are excellent, reacting very fast and effectively.

Plan management is greatly simplified, with data entry only necessary at BIA level. Accessibility via internet and mobile app. Dash board showing status of BCMS at a glance.

Report module could be improved, especially the filters. Process or activity (inter-)dependencies are not linked (no process/activity landscape).

The benefits being realised are mass cascade very quickly, automated reporting through upfront testing criteria and the ability to auto send plan review/signoff emails.

The software is easy to use and has built in help if you are not clear on what is required in any particular field It provides many different layers of reporting should you require in depth reporting and governance capability People signing off the plans do not need to have direct system access, cutting down the number of potential user accounts you need to create and administer

Sometimes you have to do a manual push to update the plan when making amendments for the amendments to be transferred to the plan (this being reviewed though and believe it to be resolved during next software release). Current limited capability on the 'Invoke' button of the BCP The call tree cascades show the message coming from a UK mobile when sending outside of the UK, this means there is a potential for people to see it as 'spam' and not read the message (this is being extremely picky) None of the above are major issues and would not stop me from recommending the software

The build of the system was more difficult than initially anticipated. With the changes happening within the software, this has caused confusion and a cause of user confidence lacking. C2 as a company is very supportive and will do everything they can to ensure their customers have what they need to use the software and without this, I would have struggled, more than I did.

It is compliant to ISO22301 and the customer care is exceptional. it is everything you need in "one box".

Complicated initially to set up and there have been regular changes within the software, that has caused confusion. I now understand that this is because request from other user have been implemented but no new release notes have been issued.

In my view there are two typical approaches to Business Continuity Management and planning: • Document incident-response resources and the procedures that explain what to do, how to do it and whom to notify. • Implement BCMS software to assist in the design, implementation and enduring control of the BCMS. Within a typical BCMS, the documentation approach has been the traditional plan-building method. This method involves significant resource gathering input from the business units on which systems and operations are critical, compiling a business impact analysis, an incident response plan, call lists, and recovery solutions and procedures. This normally resides on the shared drive ready for stakeholder use. Continity2 controls the analysis and planning process. When fully implemented, all of Business Continuity and Incident Management people, resources and business needs will be represented as data elements and stored within software’s database. The creation of Plan templates, management of contacts and BCMS governance has been a real benefit. For a global organisation, delivering a consistent methodology and approach with uniformed Plan delivery demonstrates to our external interested parties that we have a Global BCMS, not a desperate system based on out of date analysis and documentation.

It is important to start with, ‘what you put in is what you will get out’. C2 is a structured approach to BIA formulation to Plan completion, the more detail, time and effort you apply, the better the resulting Plan output. Work at the outset is required to ensure that you recognise how C2 functions as this will help you formulate the organisational structure. Once you have completed the initial ground work, C2 is very easy to add, remove and modify the structure to meet the requirements of the Plan you intend to use within your organisation. One of the things I like about this application is the simplistic dashboard. The front end appears from sign-on and this can be tailored to suit user needs, so they only see what they need to see. Another key benefit is the provision of additional functionality that supports the Plans during validation and invocation. The benefit of having one system that can be configured to suit organisational complexity, provide Plan governance, has the ability to communicate to all Plan members, additional internal and external stakeholders using SMS, e-mail and forced voice call is a real plus.

There are not many downsides to the C2 software, but one area that does cause functionality frustration, is organisational BIA. This function is great if you have an organisation that does the same activity multiple times over multiple locations. However, if this is not the case, the organisational BIA will apply constraints when trying to make organisation structure changes, removing departments, activities etc. requiring the user to modify the organisational BIA structure in order to complete a front end structure change. The ability to interface with other business systems, such as Active Directory would also benefit the application so that users do not have to remember multiple login details. However, password security can be configured to meet the needs of the business, but this would act as a separate instance.

The software has proved invaluable in supporting the rollout of our business continuity management programme. The structured way in which the BIA is presented to the end user from understanding the business activity to identifying its resource requirements and then to considering the recovery strategy makes it easy for non-BC personnel to understand. Being able to take that data and present it back in the BCP through the dynamic template is most cost and time efficient.

The structured way in which BCP's are created; taking the data captured through the BIA's and presenting it into the BC plans via the dynamic template eliminating the need for copy and paste. Once you get your dynamic template formatted as you like it can be used for the basis of all your plans giving a common look and feel.

The organisational structure offers some challenges to a large scale implementation and causes some difficulties in representing changes to the organisational structure of the company itself. The dynamic templates can take some getting right with the formatting, but once in place they do the job.