What is stopping business continuity from gaining traction?

I think there are a number of barriers preventing non-statutory organisations creating and deploying a BCP (and BCM is mandatory for statutory organisations now):

1.  There's a lack of understanding about what BCP is and is not;

2.  People can't relate to how BCP affects or could affect them or their organisation therefore they view it as "nice to have" rather than necessary;

3.  People don't know where to start and, if you don't have the resources internally, it may seem too expensive to contract a consultant or similar to come and write a BCP for your organisation;

4.  There's the ostrich effect - I'll bury my head in the sand and it'll all pass me by;

5.  BCP is, quite probably, viewed as an expensive luxury overall - disaster recovery sites; back-up equipment; staff abstraction for training and testing of the BCP; and lastly

6.  Some people have still never heard of BCP / BCM so they don't miss it!

In reality, BCM is about common sense, forward planning (which most good managers and businesses will do anyway); risk analysis, assessment and setting acceptable risk thresholds.

The estimated cost of BCM should be weighted against the estimated cost of each of the scenarios and the impact these would have on both immediate business and long term trading (remembering that loss of service has a reputational impact and will dissuade new customers from using your product / service).

The recent outbreak of swine flu is estimated to have cost UK Plc billions of pounds.  If you had a BCP, you would know exactly how you were planning to continue trading / providing a service if your staff contracted the illness.