This section is adapted from A Manager's Guide to SS540.
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Businesses are subject to disruptions of varying severity. A disruption, if not managed properly, can develop into a disaster. Besides affecting normal business operations, a disruption can tarnish an organization’s image. In the extreme case an incident not properly managed can result in significant physical or environmental damage, caused significant injuries to employees or even death. For example, a fire outbreak if not brought under control quickly can result in serious consequences. Organizations should therefore be prepared for an incident before it occurs and minimize its impact should it happens. |
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Disruption to an organization’s business can occur in varying degrees threatening its operations, staff, shareholder value, stakeholders, brand, reputation, trust and/or strategic/business goals. The impact of a disruption, if not addressed in a timely manner, generally increases in severity over time. The following terms describe the impact of disruption over time: - An Incident
is an event that occurs by chance or due to a combination of unforeseen circumstances, which, if not handled in an appropriate manner, can escalate into an emergency or disaster or crisis. - An Emergency
is a sudden, unexpected event requiring immediate action due to its impact to health and safety, the environment, property, violation of regulation or which can result in the organization being unable to provide critical business functions for some predetermined minimum period of time. - A Disaster
is a sudden, unplanned catastrophic event, usually causing great damage or loss, which makes an organization unable to provide critical business functions for some predetermined minimum period of time. - A Crisis
is a turning point or decisive moment in events. Typically, it is the moment from which an incident or emergency may go on to death or recovery. More loosely, it is a term meaning 'a testing time' or 'emergency event'. It may impact an organization's profitability, reputation, or ability to operate. It may not be time dependent and usually does not deny access to facility and infrastructure.
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What is Business Continuity Management? |
Business Continuity Management (BCM) is defined as a holistic management process that identifies potential impacts which threaten an organization and provides a framework for building resilience and the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities (SS540:2008). Potential disruptions to the interests of these stakeholders would have to be identified, pre-empted or kept to a minimum. Business functions supporting value creating activities would have to be identified. Processes and resources would need to be established to ensure the continued operation of these functions due to disruptions.
Business Continuity aims to safeguard the interests of an organization and its key stakeholders by protecting its critical business functions against predetermined disruptions. |
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What is Business Continuity? |
From the above definition of BCM, BC seeks to ensure the following concerns are managed on a perennial basis.
- Identify the interests of the organization and its key stakeholders.
- Safeguard the identified interests by:
- Identify the critical business functions supporting these interests
- Identify potential disruptions to these critical business functions
- Minimize the number of potential disruptions
- Reduce the impact of disruptions to these critical business functions
- Ensure these critical business functions can continue to support, if not sustained on a moderated basis, the identified interests
Business Continuity Management (BCM) is an ongoing management process employ by organizations to identify potential impacts and establish the necessary arrangements and plans to maintain their Business Continuity (BC) capability.
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BCM Issues
