Making Sense of Business Continuity Management

Donna Monkhouse

What better way to kick start The BC Eye blog than with a quick overview of what Business Continuity Management is all about.
In a nutshell, it is about effective management of a crisis or incident; not ‘crisis management’ as in “let’s deal with it when it happens”, but careful, thoughtful forward planning that covers all the bases ahead of time. 

It’s about looking at those parts of your business that you simply cannot afford to lose and planning how to manage these in the event of an incident or crisis; it’s about having a managed framework to enable you to get your business back up and running as quickly and as efficiently as possible with the minimum disruption when the infamous “bombshell” hits home.    Remember, delays in recovery could cost you your business - competitors are just waiting on the side-lines ready to fill the gap that a disaster could create if you drop out of the loop, albeit temporarily, and it won’t help customer confidence either.

It doesn’t matter what size your organisation is – big or small – or which sector you are operating in, Business Continuity is something you should all be thinking about.  But, to be successful, it needs to be implemented from the top down, right across the whole organisation. Everyone needs to take ownership for it to work, which of course in turn means that everyone needs to understand what it is and what their role is.

Where can you find out more?

Well there are lots of points of reference, but I think one of the best opportunities around at the moment to find out more about Business Continuity Awareness is the Business Continuity Awareness Week that runs 19^th – 23^rd March 2012.  This annual event aims to increase the awareness and understanding of business continuity across the globe.   Boasting a wide range of FREE activities from events to webinars; research to an online crisis simulation game, it is definitely the place to go to get in the know!