Business continuity management (BCM) encompasses four areas that help maintain your business’s resilience in the face of disaster.

What is business continuity management?

We define business continuity management (BCM) as the professional activity devoted to protecting organizations by using recognized methodologies to promote resilience and ensure that organizations that experience an outage or crisis can recover in such a manner as to minimize the impact on the organization and its stakeholders.

Introduction to Business Continuity Management

Business continuity management (BCM) is a vital aspect of organizational resilience. It encompasses the strategic and tactical capability of a business to plan for and respond to incidents and disruptions. BCM ensures that critical functions continue with minimal impact, preserving the organization’s reputation, brand, and value-creating activities.

Importance of BCM

In today’s dynamic and interconnected world, businesses face a multitude of risks ranging from natural disasters to cyber-attacks. Effective BCM provides a framework to mitigate these risks, ensuring operational continuity. By investing in BCM, businesses safeguard their assets, maintain customer trust, and comply with regulatory requirements.

Key Concepts of BCM

The BCM framework is built on four key dimensions:

• Program Administration: Establishes the foundation for BCM, ensuring that policies, budgets, and oversight are in place.
• Crisis Management: Prepares senior management to respond to and manage crises effectively.
• Business Recovery: Focuses on the recovery of critical business functions.
• IT Disaster Recovery: Ensures that IT systems and applications can be restored swiftly.

Each dimension includes specific components that must be managed and maintained to ensure the overall success of the BCM program.

1. Program Administration

Program Administration is the cornerstone of a successful BCM program. It involves the management and oversight necessary to support the other dimensions. Key components include:

Management Oversight

Management oversight is crucial for the success of BCM. It involves ensuring that there is committed support and guidance from senior leadership on an ongoing basis. This support is essential for the implementation and maintenance of BCM practices across the organization.

Budget

Adequate funding is necessary to sustain BCM efforts. A multi-year budget ensures that there are sufficient resources to develop, implement, and maintain BCM activities.

Policy

A documented policy guides the enterprise’s BCM efforts. This policy should outline the scope, objectives, and responsibilities of the BCM program, providing a clear direction for all activities.

Business Impact Analysis

Understanding which business processes and systems are critical is essential. A business impact analysis (BIA) identifies these critical elements, helping to prioritize recovery efforts.

Business and IT Alignment

Aligning business requirements with IT recovery capabilities ensures that technology solutions support critical business functions. This alignment is crucial for effective recovery.

Threat and Risk Assessment

Identifying relevant threats and risks is a key component of BCM. A thorough assessment helps in developing strategies to mitigate these risks.

Plan Development Standards

Establishing standards for plan development ensures that recovery plans are comprehensive and consistent with best practices.

Recovery Strategy Standards

Setting best practices for identifying recovery strategies ensures that the organization is prepared to respond effectively to disruptions.

Recovery Exercise Standards

Regular and increasingly complex recovery exercises test the organization’s preparedness and enhance its recovery capabilities.

Maintenance Standards

Timely updates to BCM programs ensure that all components remain current and effective.

Pandemic Planning

Documented strategies to deal with pandemics are essential. These plans should include measures to protect employees and maintain operations during a health crisis.

Training and Awareness Program

Training all levels of the organization in BCM principles and practices ensures that everyone knows their role in maintaining business continuity.

Metrics

Tools to measure the current state of maturity and capability of the BCM program help in continuous improvement.

Document Repository

A secure, organized, and highly-available repository for critical documents and plans ensures that information is accessible when needed.

By implementing and maintaining these components systematically, businesses set a strong foundation for the success of their BCM program.

2. Crisis Management

Crisis management prepares senior management to respond to and recover from critical disruptions. This dimension involves several key components:

Team

Identifying primary and alternate team members for each key role is essential. Team members must be capable of managing their responsibilities during a crisis.

Crisis Management Team Plan

A comprehensive plan directs the team and its response during a crisis. This plan should be consistent with industry best practices.

Crisis Communications Plan

Effective communication is crucial during a crisis. A documented plan outlines the guidelines and steps for communicating with stakeholders.

Command Centers

Physical and virtual command centers provide a place for team members to assemble during a declared event. These centers facilitate coordination and decision-making.

Pandemic Planning

The crisis management plan should reference pandemic planning guidelines and standards, ensuring preparedness for health crises.

Exercises

Regular mock disaster exercises enhance team sophistication and maturity. These exercises help identify gaps and improve response capabilities.

Training & Awareness

Regular training sessions ensure that the crisis management team is well-prepared to respond effectively.

Maintenance

The crisis management process and associated documents must be regularly updated and maintained to ensure they remain current.

By implementing and maintaining these components, businesses can build a robust crisis management program that supports business recovery and IT disaster recovery.

3. Business Recovery

Business recovery focuses on preparing the organization to respond to and recover from critical disruptions to its operations. Key components include:

Business Impact Analysis Integration

Integrating the business impact analysis (BIA) with the business recovery process ensures that recovery strategies are based on critical business needs.

Maintenance

Regular maintenance of the business recovery plan ensures that it remains current and effective.

Pandemic Planning

Integrating pandemic planning with business recovery ensures that the organization is prepared for health crises.

Recovery Plan Development

A comprehensive recovery plan details the steps and actions that business recovery teams will take in response to a crisis.

Recovery Exercises

Conducting regular, increasingly complex recovery exercises tests the organization’s preparedness and enhances recovery capabilities.

Recovery Strategy

Well-defined recovery strategies, based on the BIA, ensure that critical processes and operations can be restored.

Training & Awareness

Regular training sessions enhance the sophistication and maturity of the business recovery teams, ensuring they are well-prepared to respond to disruptions.

By focusing on these components, businesses can build a robust business recovery program that supports overall continuity efforts.

4. IT Disaster Recovery

IT disaster recovery is the technology component of business recovery. It ensures that IT systems and applications can be restored quickly and effectively. Key components include:

Recovery Strategy

Developing well-defined recovery strategies ensures that IT systems and applications can be restored based on their criticality.

Business Impact Analysis Integration

Integrating the BIA with IT disaster recovery ensures that recovery efforts are aligned with business needs.

Maintenance

Regular maintenance of IT recovery components ensures that strategies, plans, technologies, and data remain current.

Recovery Plan Development

A comprehensive IT recovery plan details the steps and actions the IT recovery teams will take in response to a disruption.

Recovery Exercises

Regular, increasingly complex recovery exercises test the organization’s IT recovery capabilities, ensuring that systems and applications can be restored effectively.

Training & Awareness

Regular training sessions enhance the sophistication and maturity of the IT recovery teams, ensuring they are well-prepared to respond to disruptions.

By focusing on these components, businesses can build a robust IT disaster recovery program that supports overall continuity efforts.

Implementation Priorities

Implementing a BCM program involves prioritizing certain components to ensure initial and ongoing success. Priorities can be categorized as follows:

High Priority

• Management Oversight
• Budget
• Business Impact Analysis
• Business & IT Alignment
• Threat & Risk Assessment
• Pandemic Planning
• Training and Awareness

Medium Priority

• Plan Development Standards
• Recovery Exercise Standards
• Recovery Strategy Standards
• Maintenance Standards
• Document Repository

Low Priority

• Policy
• Metrics

By implementing these components systematically, businesses can establish a robust foundation for their BCM program.

Maintaining BCM Program

Continuous improvement is essential for the success of a BCM program. Key activities include:

Continuous Improvement

Regular reviews and updates to the BCM program ensure that it remains current and effective. This includes revising policies, plans, and procedures based on lessons learned from exercises and actual events.

Training

Ongoing training ensures that all team members are familiar with their roles and responsibilities. Training should include regular exercises, workshops, and simulations to maintain a high level of preparedness.

Awareness

Raising awareness about BCM throughout the organization is crucial. This includes educating employees about the importance of BCM and their role in maintaining business continuity.

By focusing on continuous improvement, training, and awareness, businesses can maintain a high level of preparedness and resilience.

The Right Approach to BCM

In wrapping up our exploration of the multifaceted approach to Business Continuity Management (BCM), we cannot overstate the importance of a deliberate and structured plan. To navigate through the practical steps involved in creating a robust and effective Business Continuity Plan, it is crucial to have a comprehensive guide that walks you through developing and maintaining your business’s preparedness and resilience.

Coping with unforeseen crises demands a proactive stance. It starts with the right crisis management team – the right people can bolster your whole organization’s readiness. By starting with a solid Crisis Management plan, you can equip your organization with the knowledge to navigate and mitigate the impacts of critical disruptions.

An essential component of BCM that specifically addresses technology and data recovery is IT Disaster Recovery (ITDR). With the growing reliance on digital systems, ensuring rapid recovery and continuity is vital.

Every sound BCM strategy starts with understanding the risks at hand. This sample Risk Assessment will provide you with insights into recognizing, evaluating, and prioritizing risks, enabling you to fortify your organization against potential threats to business operations.

Finally, a pivotal element in any BCM program is the Business Impact Analysis (BIA). To accurately prioritize recovery efforts and resource allocation, a thorough BIA is indispensable. Learn how to conduct an effective analysis with our collection of Business Impact Analysis articles and tools, which will guide you through identifying and evaluating the impacts of disruptions on your critical business functions.

Just getting started? Ready.gov Business Continuity Planning provides comprehensive guidance on developing business continuity plans, including templates and best practices for various types of businesses.

By leveraging these tailored resources to navigate through Business Continuity Planning, Crisis Management, IT Disaster Recovery, Risk Assessment, and Business Impact Analysis, your organization can cultivate resilience and maintain seamless operations, even when faced with the unexpected. Remember, resilience in business is not just about surviving; it’s about thriving despite the odds.