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Business continuity confirmed for Accenture in India

27 June 2008

"Our focus on business continuity through the use of consistent processes, metrics and methodologies enables us to provide a secure environment for delivering high-quality services to our clients."

So says Tim Weir, Accenture's director of Global Asset Protection on the occasion of his company's recent award of BS 25999 certification from BSI. The certification is for Accenture's Indian delivery centres for technology and business process outsourcing and represents the first such recognition in Asia.

Value and importance of BCM

As one of the world's largest providers of management consultancy, technology services and outsourcing management, Accenture Group has long been well aware of the value and importance of business continuity management (BCM).

The company combines a high level of experience and comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, as well as extensive research on the world's most successful companies and then collaborates with clients to help them becomes high performance businesses and governments. With 178,000 people working in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$19.70 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2007. Its business is underpinned by the ability to ensure robust continuity of delivery both internally and on behalf of its clients.

What's new is that with the publication last November of the BS 25999 standard, organisations such as Accenture are able to demonstrate to clients and regulators that they have put in place a best-in-class BCM system.

Certification success

The certification covers Accenture's systems integration, application outsourcing, infrastructure outsourcing and business process outsourcing services in India delivered from its 13 delivery centres in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.

As Nirav Sampat, Accenture Global Business Continuity Management Lead, confirms, "Business continuity management is an integral part of Accenture's business activities and culture and helps Accenture meet its strategic, operational, contractual, legal and client requirements."

Weir adds, "The BS25999 certification is an indicator of the quality of the business continuity management system we have put in place to continue to provide services to our clients when faced with business disruptions and complements our ISO/IEC 27001 certification, which is a testament to our information security controls."

Independent assessment

The only international standard that provides a truly independent assessment of an organisation's business continuity, BS25999-2:2007 is designed to help companies develop and implement a robust business continuity plan. The standard has been designed to enable companies to continue operating under the most challenging and unexpected circumstances or disasters.

The Business Continuity Management system prescribed by BS 25999 is a management process that identifies potential threats to an organisation and the impacts to business operations that those threats, if realised, might cause. It also provides a framework for building organisational resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of a company's key stakeholders, reputation, brand and business.

Rapid acceptance

BS 25999 has become the industry standard for business continuity management systems in a very short time and has received rapid market acceptance - echoing the fact that the standard, when in development, attracted an unprecedented amount of interest and comment. Since publication, BS 25999 has been certified in countries from Brazil to Korea.

"We are delighted to present Accenture with what we believe is the first BS 25999 certificate issued in Asia," said Flemming Norklit, Managing Director, BSI Management Systems. "Already established as an important market differentiator, BS 25999 certification provides independent assurance that organisations meet business continuity management best practices. Accenture can now demonstrate that it is doing what is required to protect its business and, more significantly, its clients' businesses."

For more on BS 25999 see: http://www.bsigroup.com/en/Assessment-and-certification-services/management-systems/Standards-and-Schemes/BS-25999.

For more on BSI India see: www.bsigroup.in

© British Standards Institution 2008. This article was first published on BusinessStandards.com, BSI Group's online corporate magazine, in July 2008. It has been reproduced here with permission.