AN OVERVIEW OF BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT (BCM):

A Definition of Business Continuity Management:

Business Continuity Management means ensuring the continuity or uninterrupted provision of operations and services.  Business Continuity Management is an on-going process with several different but complementary elements. Planning for business continuity is a comprehensive process that includes disaster recovery, business recovery, business resumption, and contingency planning.

  Definition used by the European based Business Continuity professional body – The Business Continuity Institute (BCI):

• ·Is a holistic management process that identifies possible impacts that potentially threaten an organization.
• ·Provides a framework for building resilience and the capability for an effective response.
• ·Safeguards the interests of an organization’s key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities. 

There are many risks that may threaten your organization by disrupting  your business processes.  These risks include traditional emergencies like fires, floods, earthquakes and tornados as well as risks form physical and cyber terrorism, cyber crime, computer and telecommunications failures, theft, employee sabotage, and labor strife.  Any one of these can all be very disruptive for your business.   BCM efforts are likely to make money for your firm as they serve to minimize disruptions and financial loss during even minor events.  These means increased reliability and productivity for your company.  These means competitive advantage and increased market share.  Business Continuity Management is a relatively new term that is often thought of as another way to say "disaster recovery" but it means so much more.  Business Continuity Management includes disaster recovery, business recovery, business resumption, contingency planning, and crisis management. As described above, Business Continuity Management is meant to have a very broad meaning and is often used as an all-encompassing term to describe an integrated and enterprise-wide process that should include the following in alphabetical order: Viz. Accident prevention;  business impact analysis business recovery; business resumption planning; command centers; computer security; contingency planning; crisis communication; crisis management; disaster recovery; emergency management and response;  event management; exercising and training; information security; mitigation planning; project management and quality control; risk control; risk financing and insurance; risk management; safety and security; software management  Business Continuity Management therefore, is a comprehensive process to ensure the continuation and improvement of business in the face of whatever challenges any firm may face. Continuity planning requires that these many processes be used together, to create a complete continuity plan. The plan must be maintained and updated as business processes change. Continuity plans must be tested.  Table top drills and functional exercises are generally used to make sure that to ensure that they will work.

 BCM Planning process:

The first step in the planning process is to conduct a risk assessment and a business impact assessment.  The next step is to decide what measures can be put in place to prevent risks becoming reality and to minimize damage if a disaster does occur. Not all risks are preventable, but steps can be taken to minimize the likelihood that they will happen.