Business Continuity Management & Disaster Recovery

Business continuity management (BCM) is a type of risk management designed to address the threat of disruptions to business activities or processes.

It involves making and validating business continuity plans (BCPs) to ensure you can respond to and recover from potential threats as effectively as possible.

Find out how to create a BCP

Continuing to provide an acceptable level of service throughout a disruptive incident helps preserve corporate reputation and, ultimately, revenue.

Demonstrating that you have effective business continuity measures in place can also improve your insurance premiums and provide new contract opportunities.

This can be best attained by implementing a business continuity management system (BCMS) aligned with the international standard ISO 22301:2012.

Learn more about ISO 22301

ISO 22301:2012 is an international standard that provides a framework for implementing a BCMS. This system can help organisations minimise business disruption and continue operating in the event of an incident.

An ISO 22301-aligned BCMS will include disaster recovery and business continuity plans to help your organisation recover critical operations as quickly as possible.

Buy the standard

Although the terms ‘business continuity’ and ‘disaster recovery’ are often used interchangeably, they are two distinct – if overlapping – disciplines.

Disaster recovery (DR) plans typically focus on the technical aspects of recovering specific operations, functions, sites, services, or applications. They are often part of a larger BCMS.

A BCP might contain or refer to several disaster recovery plans.

In essence, business continuity is about working through the disruption, whereas disaster recovery is about resolving the disruption.

Learn more about the difference between business continuity and disaster recovery

There is a growing trend of legislation requiring organisations to be more resilient. Business continuity measures are a good way to help meet this requirement.

Section 174 of the UK Companies Act 2006 requires directors to exercise reasonable care and skill when performing their duties, which includes mitigating risks to the organisation.

Organisations offering essential services need to implement incident response capabilities in line with the requirements of the NIS Regulations (Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018):

• DSPs (digital service providers) within scope have the explicit requirement to put business continuity measures in place.
• Although it is not required, we encourage OES (operators of essential services) to consider implementing BCM measures to effectively manage business interruptions.

Let us share our expertise and support you on your journey to ISO 22301 compliance. Browse our range of bestselling products, services, and simple solutions.

• ISO 22301:2019 – An introduction to a business continuity management system (BCMS)
• ISO 22301:2019 and business continuity management – Understand how to plan, implement and enhance a business continuity management system (BCMS)
• Certified ISO 22301 BCMS Foundation Training Course
• Certified ISO 22301 BCMS Lead Implementer Training Course
• ISO 22301 BCMS Toolkit
• ISO 22301:2019 Standard
• Making a Success of Managing and Working Remotely
• Business Continuity and the Pandemic Threat – Learning from COVID-19 while preparing for the next pandemic