• Home /
• Case studies BCM /
• Construction company uses BS 25999 certification to demonstrate best practice

Construction company uses BS 25999 certification to demonstrate best practice

Customer needs

• Enhance corporate credentials when tendering for business and open up access to new markets
• Meet legislative and corporate governance requirements
• Demonstrate best practice and continual improvement to stakeholders and customers

Customer benefits

• Improved resilience to disruption
• Better understanding of threats and activities at risk and structured process for implementing measures to protect against these
• Enhanced customer relations and improvements to the supply chain

“Being in an industry that is constantly subjected to internal and external pressure means we could incur costly errors if caught unprepared when a crisis strikes. Having a business continuity management system in place gives us the best chance to recover our business quickly, and continue to provide a robust service to customers in the event of any unexpected disruption.“ Daniel Dixon (Jnr), Managing Director

Customer background
Dixons Contractors is one of Northern Ireland’s leading construction companies. Dixons’ portfolio of projects encompasses both traditional and contemporary design briefs within commercial and domestic sectors. The company offers a total-solution service from the initial design stage right through to the completion of a project. Dixons already holds an impressive portfolio of fully integrated management system certifications including ISO 9001 (quality management), ISO 14001 (environmental management) and BS OHSAS 18001 (occupational health and safety management). The company has recently been awarded certification from BSI to the business continuity management system standard, BS 25999. This award recognises that Dixons has an effective business continuity plan in place to protect the company should normal business activity be disrupted.

Why certification
“We believe that it is excellent business practice to have third parties reviewing our processes and systems on a periodic basis,” says Eleanor Forrest, Integrated Manager. 

“Dixons already holds certification to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and BS OHSAS 18001 and as a result an ethos of continual improvement is now fully embedded within our company culture.

Business continuity management was a logical next step for us in order to be seen as setting standards within the construction industry rather than following our competitors. Tender documents are increasingly asking construction companies to offer evidence of a business continuity plan we believe that this will only become more prominent.”

Implementation
Dixons wanted to integrate business continuity management into its other management system standards. The company strongly believes that third party review can highlight issues and improvements that are not obvious when auditing in-house. The company also insists that independent verification of its systems gives confidence to customers that the organisation has a desire to continuously improve its processes.

“Our first task was to create a business continuity plan specifying what we would do and how we would prioritise activities if we encountered an unforeseen incident,” says Forrest. “We also embarked upon an internal training programme to generate a better understanding amongst our staff of the importance of preventative measures to safeguard our business in the event of a crisis.”

With a business impact analysis and strategic continuity plan defined, Dixons needed to test its approach. As part of the assessment, employees were required to act out a number of live emergency scenarios to establish how the new set of plans and procedures would work in a disaster situation.

“The certification process has been a valuable learning experience for our organisation,” says Forrest. “For many of our staff, it was their first experience of business continuity management. The work undertaken to achieve BS 25999 certification has helped us identify risks within our systems and the BSI auditors were particularly helpful when it came to simplifying and applying the standard to our business. As a consequence we have been able to identify critical processes and activities and have taken measures to control these risks.”

Benefits of working with BSI
Dixons chose to work with BSI because of the company’s reputation as industry leader in its field. ”We value BSI’s intimate knowledge of standards and we have found BSI’s auditors to have a positive, practical and pragmatic approach,” says Julie O’Hagan, Office Manager. “Dixons is strongly committed to continual improvement across all aspects of its business and business continuity is no exception.

“It is difficult at this stage to put a financial value on the benefits of implementing BS 25999 but the management system acts as an essential insurance policy assuring the continued operation of our critical services and providing a tried and tested formula to resume normal service as slickly and efficiently as possible in the unfortunate event of a crisis.”

________________________________

Find more information the standard
http://shop.bsigroup.com/BS25999-1

http://shop.bsigroup.com/BS25999-2

________________________________

Find out more about certification

BSI
Kitemark Court, Davy Avenue, Knowlhill
Milton Keynes, MK5 8PP, United Kingdom
T: +44 (0)845 080 9000
F: +44 (0)1908 228 180
E: certification.sales@bsigroup.com
www.bsigroup.co.uk/improve