Good business continuity continues to be both a learning and a problem-solving process. While the Business Continuity Management industry has its own experts who work on the problems and solutions on a daily basis, continuing to be open-minded about input from outside the industry can also be rewarding. For OpsCentre, our participation in the University of Wollongong Univative Program was first and foremost a way to help build and develop a positive community. What we also found was that putting strategic business questions to a group of bright, enthusiastic people unfettered by conventional business ideas can lead to both innovative and practical ideas.
The Univative Program is for teams of students to find out about more about the business world, whether in terms of business continuity or other topics. By working on real business questions, they can sharpen their skills to impress potential employers and to put into practice some of the latest theories and concepts that are in their course curricula. As Einstein said, the kind of thinking that produces a problem is unlikely to also produce the solution – hence the value of new angles and insights. Participating companies (“hosts”) like OpsCentre get the opportunity to listen to some fresh thinking from the teams of students that accept the host’s “business challenge”.
After engaging with the business, researching and defining their proposals, the teams then made their presentation on the 28th of July. Roz Pocius of Careers Central, the organisation running the Univative programme, said ““Feedback from students and hosts was extremely positive and we find that both groups are keen to participate more than once”. At OpsCentre, we certainly agree. Business continuity continues to grow as a field, and “out of the box” thinking and constructive proposals on how to move forward are always welcome.
You can read more about Univative and the participating teams at http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW107505.html.