• Home /
• Getting started with Business Continuity Management /
• Why is Business Continuity Management important?

Why is Business Continuity Management important?

By implementing a Business Continuity Plan your business will increase its recovery capabilities dramatically. And that means you can make the right decisions quickly, cut downtime and minimise financial losses.

Preparedness is the key. It gives confidence. Having Business Continuity Management (BCM) in place demonstrates a duty of care to your customers and suppliers.

It’s a visible way of meeting your customers' expectations and emphasising due diligence to key stakeholders. It helps safeguard your company’s reputation. BCM will ensure you continue to operate and to meet legal, regulatory and contractual obligations.

Through good BCM practice you can protect your business. Still not convinced? Think that a Business Continuity Plan is just for those rare incidents that will never happen to you..?

Think again. What are you going to do if there is a power cut, a computer virus attack, equipment failure, theft, flooding, accidental damage? And that’s naming just a few.

Business Continuity is not just about the high profile disasters we hear about. It’s about being ready for any incident that may cause a disruption to your business.

To give you an example. You may think your well managed IT system has a reliable recovery plan. However, IT systems need buildings, staff, services and communications to operate.

A recovery plan for an individual system or process is of little value if there is no-one to run it. A solution for one problem is not Business Continuity Management. BCM includes all of your business and all of the risks.

Many organisations are affected by the UK Civil Contingencies Act 2004, e.g. those who are suppliers of goods and services to local authorities and utilities.

The Act places certain duties around the continuity of supply of goods and services, and local authorities will want proof that you can continue to deliver after an incident affecting your organisation. Showing them that you have BCM in place by being certified to BS 25999 is one way of proving this.

What’s great about the Business Continuity Management standard BS 25999 is that any business can use it.

If you’ve never had a business continuity plan then you’ll be able to quickly put one together. And if you already have a plan you can make sure it meets best practice.

BS 25999 was created to satisfy the needs of customers, clients, government, regulators and all interested parties. And by using a BSI standard you are using best practice. It gives your customers and clients assurance that you will be capable of managing business continuity at a time of disruption.