Business Continuity Management

The terms Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning have been around for a number of years. While the original focus was predominantly on Information Technology (IT), recent events such as terrorist attacks and high profile disasters together with an increased need for corporate governance have changed the emphasis towards a more "holistic" approach of Business Continuity Management. This emphasis is coming from several areas including customers, stakeholders, insurance and financial institutions.

Where Business Continuity Planning was once the role of the IT Manager, it is now high on the list of senior management and executives' agendas and is increasingly becoming an integral part of an organisation's good business practice processes. Part of this process is to ensure there is a plan in place to deal with the "unexpected" so that stakeholders, dependant customers, financial lenders and insurance companies are comfortable that the organisation can recover from a disastrous event quickly. By having a plan an organisation can minimise the impact of such an event on its personnel, assets, market share and finances.

Research into business continuity has shown that the likelihood of an organisation surviving a major event without a plan is less than 20%. Conversely, with a documented plan there is an 80% survival rate.

The Business Continuity Management process follows a professionally recognised series of steps: Risk Assessment, Business Impact Analysis, Plan Development and Documentation and finally Plan Testing and Maintenance.

• BCP vs DRP
• Why Plan?
• Advantages of Planning
• The Planning Process