Business Continuity Management
What is Business Continuity Management?
Business continuity management (BCM) is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats and determines the impact of those threats.
According to the International Glossary for Resiliency, it is a
“Holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organisation and the impacts to business operations those threats, if realised, might cause, and which provides a framework for building organisational resilience with the capability of an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value-creating activities.“
Accordingly, BCM is intended to respond to events with strategies, plans and actions in order to protect activities and processes and to be able to react immediately to the threat with alternatives.
According to the Federal Office for Security and Information Technology, BCM is understood as a management process with the aim of identifying serious risks to an institution that endanger its survival at an early stage and establishing measures against them.
BCM is a system that integrates emergency response, crisis management, technological continuity and business continuity.
ISO standard 22301 sets out the requirements for planning, establishing, operating and continuously improving business continuity management.
The main purpose of Business Continuity Management
BCM is broader than just providing guidance in case an adverse event occurs. Business Continuity Management goes much further.
The main purpose is to prevent any impact on the brand, image and reputation in case of a threat and to ensure the continuity of the company.
Good BCM helps companies identify threats to their key services. Planning and exercises ensure that the impact of potential threats is minimised. In addition, business continuity management helps protect the company’s market share, brand, image and reputation.
In summary, the following elements are considered:
- Disruption risks
- Personnel risks
- Legal/regulatory/compliance risks
- Third party risks
- Supply chain risks
- Service delivery risks
- Technical risks
- Reputation/brand risks
- Political and social risks
- Environmental risks
- The BCM framework
- The BCM framework describes six dimensions that companies need to go through in order to improve their resilience.
These include:
- Assessment and objectives
- Identify critical processes
- Business impact analysis
- Developing approaches to response and implementation
- Planning and testing
- Monitoring, validation and improvement
- Be prepared for threats with BCM
With business continuity management, it is possible to avoid the negative impact of disasters or the like and quickly resume normal operations.
