The new British standard forbusiness continuitywill help
organisations protect their brand and reputation as well as helping
them reduce risk, says theBritish
Standards Institution (BSI).
The BSI published the requirements for the
BS 25999 standard in November 2007 to enable organisations to
certify their business continuity management systems (BCMS).
John Hele, global product manager for BSI Management Systems,
said certification would help to protect organisations' brand and
reputation, help them retain clients, and speed up the tendering
process.
"Certification will provide a faster way of proving
organisations' resilience to potential customers as well as making
them more attractive to insurers and potentially qualify them for
preferential rates," he said.
Hele will detail the certification process at next week's
Business Continuity Expo in London and aims to help organisations
understand the wider benefits of the standard.
"Many organisations are still struggling with the idea of
spending time and resources on something they hope they will never
use," he said.
Hele also aims to help organisations decide what the scope of
their BCMS should be. Many organisations looking to introduce the
standard struggled to work out how much of their business the BCMS
should encompass, he added.
"The key to setting the scope of a BCMS is for an organisation
to determine what its key products and services are, and what the
critical activities are that produce those products and
services."
Hele said the process helped organisations identify what they
would try to save in the event of a major disaster, what systems
they would have to restore, and how quickly that would have to
happen before the continuity of the business was threatened.