ISO 22301:2012- Business Continuity Management System (BCMS)

Brief Description

ISO 22301 is one of the newest international standards published by ISO. Published in 2012, it is its first edition. The ISO 22301 standard is one of the first standards worldwide to be harmonized with the Annex SL that prescribes structure of all current and future management system standards (MSS).

Largely based on BS 25999-2 (a British standard for business continuity), the ISO 22301 prescribes requirements for organizations that want to build a business continuity management system (BCMS). Any type of an organization can refer to this standard and develop its own business continuity management system. Once all applicable criteria are addressed, the organization can get this business continuity management system certified from a third party certification body.

Most organizations develop a quality management system because –

• • There is a need to assure their customers and other stakeholders that the organization has the ability to meet continuity requirements and expectations. A certification to ISO 9001 will provide that confidence to the organization’s customers.
• • The organizations need to develop a consistent approach to deal with disruptive incidents. An application of ISO 22301 offers a framework to the organization where a documented management system to cater to this need can be developed.

ISO 22301 helps the organizations to build an effective mechanism for identifying and satisfying continuity and recovery needs.

Benefits

The benefits that an organization may get out of the application of ISO 22301 and its certification are mostly based on the management’s intentions of selecting this standard. However, following examples provide some direction about what the ISO 22301 can give the organizations in terms of its benefits –

• • Enhanced brand image – An ISO 22301 certified organization is considered to be more reliable than the other similar organizations that are not certified. The certification is globally accepted and is gained by large as well as small organizations hence bring an equality in terms its positioning of brand reliability per say. The certification adds up to the brand recognition.
• • Increase in the trust level of all interested parties – Interested parties of an organization include its customers, owners, employees, suppliers, bankers, etc. All these have certain expectations in terms of the continuity of the organization. Due to the improved availability of the processes and controls for reacting to business disruptions, after application of ISO 22301 based business continuity management system, the organization long term existence becomes more and more ensured. As a result the trust level and confidence of all these interested parties get a boost.
• • Improved involvement of people – A business continuity management system built around ISO 22301 demands active involvement and participation of people. Involving people at all levels improves the team spirit and boosts internal cohesiveness of the organization.
• • Protection of reputation – Due to the readiness of the organization to react to any kind of business disruption or emergency situation, the organization is able to deal with such incidents effectively and thus prevents any damage to the reputation of the organization.
• • Prevention of losses – Any business disruption may bring up expenditure or losses that are resulting out of the impact of the incident. An effectively designed business continuity framework will help an organization to prevent such losses by reacting systematically to such incidents.
• • Applicability
• • The ISO 22301 standard applies to all types of organizations including commercial organizations, non-profit organizations, Governments, Educational Institutes, NGOs, etc.

Roadmap to certification

• • HTP Technology helps the customers from initiation of the business continuity management system development till certification to ISO 22301.
• • Following 12-step process describes the high level approach to implementation and certification –