Problem
Rebuilding Continuity in a Remote-First World
A global leader in health information technology and clinical research, faced challenges coordinating complex data and analytics workflows across its expansive, innovation-driven operations. With over 100,000 employees worldwide, the company’s business continuity program was under immense strain.
Their existing vendor, VOC, provided only static Word-based templates—digital replicas that lacked critical planning elements such as system dependencies, vendor relationships, and impact metrics. This led to a fragmented, facility-based approach to continuity planning, with hundreds of outdated or irrelevant documents that couldn’t support a modern, remote-first workforce. As physical offices closed during COVID, large segments of the organization were left without plan coverage, creating dangerous continuity gaps.
Leadership faced mounting frustration: no completed business impact assessments (BIAs), no disaster recovery validations, no reporting visibility, and a notification process that was entirely manual. Documentation lived in silos, and despite two years of attempted implementation, VOC remained unusable. Senior Manager of Business Continuity Management inherited the program amid these challenges—tasked with rebuilding it from the ground up under tight time constraints, limited resources, and a strict $24K annual budget cap.
Q1
Solution
Digitizing Continuity Planning with SmartSuite
The company's Senior Manager of Business Continuity Management partnered with SmartSuite to overhaul the business continuity management (BCM) framework, moving from location-based to functionally aligned department-level planning. SmartSuite’s flexible data model allowed for central libraries of facilities, vendors, and applications—pulled in from systems like Workday, Coupa, and CMDB via import or integration.
Key innovations included:
- BIAs with upstream/downstream dependencies and automated RTO/RPO mapping
- Crisis management dashboards with geographic filtering and automated alerts
- Document Designer templates branded per subsidiary, enabling multi-entity use
- Site-level advisory automation using radius-based incident impact calculations
- Role-based permissions for plan authors, reviewers, and read-only approvers
SmartSuite's no-code configuration empowered the team to rapidly prototype and iterate solutions. Even the incident advisory process—previously run manually with global alerts—was now digitized, tracked, and integrated with executive notifications.
Q2
Results
From Siloed Templates to Strategic Resilience
Within months, the HealthTech company transitioned from a stalled vendor implementation to an active, data-driven continuity platform tailored to their enterprise needs.
- 600+ users now engage in plan writing, review, and approval with precise roles
- 2,000+ plans are standardized, centralized, and tied to real operational dependencies
- Incident response is now measurable and trackable—down to regional risk zones
SmartSuite met the companies tight $24K budget and enabled phase-based expansion with no loss in functionality. The team now supports crisis management, disaster recovery, and continuity planning from one tool—customized to serve global operations, clinical trials, and regional risk requirements.
SmartSuite’s dashboarding, automated communications, and secure data management gave them the strategic visibility and executional control they were missing. And by aligning on templates, governance, and system integrations, the business continuity program now scales with confidence.
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