BS 25999 is the Standard for Business Continuity Management (BCM), which is designed to help you enhance your resilience to business interruptions.
BS 25999 Part 1 was launched in December 2006, and details good practice for BCM. Part 2, which was launched in 2007 allows you to be assessed against the Standard, leading the award of a BSI Kitemark when you comply.
It is widely recognised that the effects of a business interruption, whether it be fire, flood, civil incident or any other event, can cause a whole range of issues for an organisation, ranging from the merely inconvenient to the very serious.
The introduction of BS 25999 reflects the view of many senior managers that a business interruption can affect a business’ performance over the short and long term. Therefore a clear set of guidelines that can help any organisation of any size build up responses to a business interruption is to be welcomed.
For example
- An effectively managed response to an interruption will create a better perception with customers and other stake holders - a flawed response may damage the perception of an organisation.
- An interruption could damage the effectiveness of a TV or press campaign if it prevents a product or service bring delivered to customers
- An interruption to an invoicing application could disrupt a company’s invoicing schedule, affecting cash flow.
On top of this, there may be significant management distraction, as your organisation recovers back to ‘business as usual’. This may well reduce the management’s ability to ensure that the organisation delivers according to the Chief Executive’s plan.
BS 25999 is designed to help prevent a small incident from becoming a major business issue.
SunGard believe that, instead of being yet another piece of bureaucracy, it can be used as a source of competitive advantage by:
- Enhancing your corporate governance regime
- Securing your supply chain
- Using your adherence to BS 25999 to secure new customers
- Using the Standard where it will deliver the most value in your business
- Reducing the overhead of managing uncertainty