What makes Avalution different?
We differentiate ourselves by taking a holistic, proactive view of the business, and by focusing on both reducing risk likelihood through the identification of risk treatment options, while also developing response and recovery solutions designed to limit impact. We are always focused on developing business continuity solutions that are pragmatic, offering business value through an appropriate mix of realistic risk mitigation and cost. We are able to do this by being creative and flexible, aligning with our clients’ needs and by having professionals with a robust background and a variety of experiences. Click here to see examples of some of our unique projects and solutions.
Why have I not heard of Avalution before?
Avalution focuses exclusively on business continuity and therefore is primarily known within the business continuity industry. Unless you read a major business continuity publication or have attended a major business continuity conference, it is unlikely that you have heard our name. However, within our industry we are known as a thought leader, both as a company and our collection of professionals. Click here to view our upcoming speaking engagements, tradeshows and other events.
What role does Avalution perform during a project?
Avalution’s project participation can be characterized in two different ways – a subject matter expert and an efficient
“do-er”.
-
Subject Matter Experts
We are subject experts that can provide management and in-house business continuity professionals with lessons learned and proven strategies. We find that this role is best suited for organizations that have existing, operational business continuity processes and are looking to mature those efforts.
- Efficient Do-er
We can provide the educated manpower to complete robust tasks. We don’t just recommend solutions, we complete them in a quick and effective manner.
Can Avalution help me respond to a disaster?
Our project work enables our clients to respond to a disaster on their own. However, we are always available to assist when needed and requested. This assistance often takes the form of remotely enabling discussions and decision making but can also include onsite assistance as needed. In the end, we create a partnership with our clients and are committed to a successful response and recovery effort.
Describe your optimal client.
Avalution works best with organizations that recognize the need for some level of proactive response and recovery planning, as well as the potential need for resilient business and technology processes. Our clients are dedicated to ensuring the continuity of critical operations for the benefit of their customers, stakeholders and employees. Avalution’s clients are also interested in taking a practical approach to business continuity that does not exclusively follow theory. Lastly, our clients also recognize that business continuity is not a project, but a program. As a result, they look for knowledge transfer and prepare to continue our work after the project concludes (engaging with us when it is beneficial to the progression and maturation of the business continuity program).
What does Avalution do best?
Avalution’s best attribute is its flexibility to provide creative solutions that meet an organization’s unique business continuity problem. Every client is different and has a unique issue to manage - we never expect our clients to accept “cookie-cutter” solutions. Avalution excels at being able to understand complex business processes and issues and provide solutions that mitigate the requested level and type of business continuity risk. Click here to read some of our unique perspectives on business continuity issues our clients have faced.
What type of organization chooses Avalution?
Organizations that choose Avalution are those that want to focus and carefully invest in mitigating business continuity risk. The driver of this focus may be a customer demand, a corporate risk management goal or a regulatory mandate. Organizations that “typically” choose Avalution are:
- Challenged to deliver business continuity with major business constraints
- Demanding something more than a boilerplate plan
- Complying with a complex mandate from a third-party
- Balancing proactive risk treatment with reactive response and recovery planning
- Developing a recurring capability to manage and mature a business continuity program
What is Avalution's project pricing structure?
Avalution prices projects based on the hours estimated to complete required activities and any expenses expected due to travel. For projects where the scope may be undefined, the pricing structure is often time and materials, where the organization is charged for the hours worked and the expenses incurred. For other situations, whereby the scope and roles / responsibilities are defined, Avalution can price a project using a fixed fee structure which is inclusive of time and expenses.
You're in Cleveland, we're not. Is that a problem?
Avalution has clients in the Cleveland area; however most of our clients are located outside of Ohio and some are located outside of the United States. Our team is available to travel wherever needed, on a regular basis or for a one time visit. To minimize expenses, we attempt to maximize our efforts while onsite at a facility so that we can complete part of our work from our offices in Cleveland. We also develop project approaches that allow our teams to impose as minimally as possible on the client, which affords us the ability to work from Cleveland and decreases the client’s efforts in support of our activities. We feel that our client satisfaction survey displays that our clients do not find a problem with our company being located in a city different from theirs.
Are you a consulting company and a software provider?
Yes, Avalution provides both consulting services and business continuity management software. However, we're a consulting company first and began providing our software solution, The Planning Portal, to fill a gap in the market, primarily to ensure our clients could have the best resources to efficiently manage recurring business continuity activities. We believe that software can be a key enabler for organizations and wanted to be able to offer a toolset that was flexible and affordable.
Do you have any businesses that you partner with?
Avalution prefers to remain an independent firm. We do not have any business partnerships that could hinder our ability to provide unbiased services to our clients. We evaluate our client’s needs for additional services or products and provide a recommendation, based on the client’s needs and requirements.
Describe your professionals.
Avalution’s team is a group of business professionals with extensive and varying backgrounds in business continuity. All of our professionals have a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree, many with advanced degrees. Most of our professionals have been involved in business continuity throughout their careers, with many focusing on niche areas of business continuity. Our goal is to be able to provide our clients with the best people in the business continuity marketplace, who we feel are all characterized as smart, creative, quality-minded, out-of-the-box thinking professionals. We believe that we do this, evidenced by our client satisfaction survey.
Describe your consultative approach.
Avalution takes a collaborative approach and works with all levels of management to design solutions that make business sense and address both business process and financial project objectives. We believe that business continuity risks and solutions involve the entire organization and, by including representation from all areas within the scope of the effort, the organization is better able to assess business continuity risk and prepare for a crisis event or a business interruption. We fully understand that business continuity efforts and solutions must make business sense, deliver a strong value proposition and be practical. To learn more about our approach, click here to view a full description of our firm’s culture and methodologies. To hear how our clients feel about our approach, click here to view our client satisfaction survey.
What is the ACP designation?
Avalution Consulting is recognized as a participant in the BSI Americas Associate Consultant Program (ACP). BSI Americas administers the ACP program in order to provide a list of consulting organizations who are "credible and offer an acceptable service in terms of value and performance.” BSI Americas developed and published British Standard (BS) 25999, and now administers the associated certification program. Avalution has experience assisting organizations as they prepare for this certification and has worked closely with BSI Americas in the development of the whitepaper How to Deploy BS 25999.
What is the breadth of your services?
Avalution lists its services under two categories: Program Development and Program Maturation.
Program Development includes:
- Continuity Program Definition
- Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
- Risk Assessment
- Risk Treatment and Business Continuity Strategy Identification
- Plan Documentation
- Certification Preparation
Program Maturation includes:
- Exercise Facilitation
- Training and Awareness
- Continuous Improvement Process Design
- Certification Preparation
Above all else, our services are customized to the specific needs and culture of our clients. We not only help organizations new to business continuity but also organizations who have been planning for many years.
What types of industries do you serve?
Avalution’s professionals have experience in a large breadth of industries. We have focused on a set that we feel we can best serve, including those listed below. Read our perspective on how to tackle business continuity issues within each of these industries by visiting our industry practices page.
- Banking
- Education
- Insurance
- Manufacturing
- Pharmaceutical and Biotech
- Professional Services
- Public and Private Healthcare Providers
- Retail
- Utilities
What is your stance on business continuity software? Can you help us choose and implement solutions? What about notification service providers?
We feel that business continuity tools, such as software and notification services, can provide significant value when the organization selects a solution based on business requirements and if the solution is implemented and communicated in a controlled manner. Avalution can assist in assessing if a tool or service is a viable option and help define requirements, choose the solution and implement the tool or service (which includes training and awareness). We understand that our tool, The Planning Portal, meets a specific need within the marketplace and may not be the best fit for everyone; therefore we remain objective and are positioned to assist our clients in selecting from a wide range of products and solutions.
What standards does Avalution follow?
Our consulting methodology is consistent with leading industry guidelines, regulatory requirements and best practices, including NFPA 1600, BS 25999, the Disaster Recovery Institute’s (DRI) Professional Practices and the Business Continuity Institute’s (BCI) Good Practices. Our consultants are certified by the Disaster Recovery Institute. Our consultants also have project management and IT audit certifications, as well as backgrounds in Six Sigma, all of which influence the methods by which we develop and deliver business continuity solutions.
We’ve initially compiled and continue to maintain a list of leading business continuity-related standards – you may view this listing on our Standards Overview page.
Do you see business continuity as a plan or a process?
Talking to an Avalution professional will lead you to conclude very quickly that we deliver business continuity processes and solutions, not just volumes of plan documentation. A plan is part of the solution, but is not the exclusive deliverable. All of our clients that have experienced a crisis feel that they were best-prepared because of the process facilitated by Avalution’s professionals. Their plans were enablers but not the sole key success factors.