Very interesting question, but no direct answer. In fact continuity of IS is contingent upon various factors including life cycles of organisation, it's products, services, processes and systems. However, IS life cycles should be technology neutral. 

I would suggest to refer to Luftman's model. My book on IT acquisition life cycle model published by IGI could provide some insight.

Do IS applications' continuity management generate add-value through IS quality?

Assuming IS is Information System (and not Information Security etc.).  Agreed IS continuity management generates value add to represent IS quality.  Reason being the IS quality e.g. Recovery Point Objective (RPO) < 10 minutes & Recovery Time Objective (RTO) < 2 hours etc for an IS application can be demonstrated through the IS continuity management program implemented.  The program will cover continuity planning, risk assessment, impact analysis, implementing Disaster Recovery (DR) replication software tools inclusive host-based replication, storage-based replication, database log shipping etc. as well as disaster recovery management (DRM) software which encompasses automation & orchestration capabilities.  Examples of DRM software include Sanovi, Perpetuuiti etc.  Once these DRM software is installed & turn-on, it will measure all the actual RPO & RTO achieved during a DR exercise / actual DR in a dashboard showing to IT administrators or business unit owners etc.  IS quality achieved through IS continuity management not only minimize the risk & cost of doing business, at the same time also meeting internal / external regulatory compliance as well as improve the company's reputation / branding.

In the context of my research, IS refers Information Systems, and ISCM to Information Systems Continuity Management. I agree that capability to respond and recover during and after a major incident, is vital for protection of a company value and the cash flow, however it comes with the price. Every investment for recovery capability is out from other business opportunities to be capitalize, so the senior management probably struggles with the question “how to justify resources for a fatal event that may never materialize?

June 2015 I completed the first part of my literature review comprising 149 scientific and professional articles related to BCM and ISCM. The general finding was that a large number of BCM/ ISCM papers used “loss scenarios” as a rationale for research. In professional literature it was generally accepted to use “loss/cost-factors” as an argument for BCM/ ISCM development and benefits for business was considered as “value preservation” and "be compliant". The key word search revealed that e.g. the frequency of word “opportunity” was 74, while word “risk” appeared 2920 times. The meta-analysis concluded that BCM/ ISCM research focus is on "cost and loss", rather than “gain and save”. Literature review suggest also that BCM/ ISCM relates IS service quality thru the concept of Reliability and IT service quality where the most influential variable for positive organizational impact is the information systems service quality in the context of information systems success model by DeLone&Mclean.

In service management, there are number of processes e.g. performance, availability, configuration, security, change etc. (ITIL). Based on my observations from the past 15 years it appears that in practice team members who are actually designing, delivering and maintaining the system are most likely the same people dealing with different management processes. So I am wondering how would IS continuity management e.g. setting RTO effect on SLA e.g. availability, performance, OPEX/CAPEX and general incident resolutions. What if we remove IS continuity management process (as a factor) from IS service management process deck, would other process areas be effected positively, negatively or not at all in terms of quality?

Dear  Kimmo,

Please check out this link for some more studies.

https://scholar.google.co.in/scholar?q=related:55-2KsJRHJwJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2012

Thanks and regards,

Rekha Mishra

Thanks Rekha!

Hi Kimmo:

In terms of the question in your response, if we removed BC from the IS service, the user probably wouldn't notice any difference except perhaps an improvement (eliminating the test period for BC plans) in basic service.

But on a larger scale we have to understand that quality is a subjective construct. Everyone has their own definition of quality. And the organization's view of quality is the result of a power based negotiation between social agencies. In that view, the quality of an IT service could be impacted by the perceived value of having BC in the organization. If one social agency is able to sell it as critical to the service then, BC would be very important. If they were not then not. 

I know that doesn't help much but I think it is a realistic picture of how BC fits into the perceived quality of an IS service.