What does mean Business Continuity Management (BCM)?

  • by Nageshwar Das
  • September 2, 2021
  • 10 minute read

Business continuity management is not just about having systems in place for backups and to fall back on. There needs to be a mindset change in the employees who operate these systems and hence; what needs is the ability to switch to the backup system or the offshore site and resume operations within no time. What is Business Continuity? Business continuity (BC) defines as the capability of the organization to continue the delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruptive incident. So, what is the question; What does mean BCM? Explanation.

The Concept of Business Continuity Management (BCM) Explanation with Meaning and Definition.

The entire business around the world exposes to risk or disruptions; whether it is from fire, equipment failure, natural disaster, communication failure, economic downturn, or an act of terrorism. There can be hardly a superior hazard to any organization than the recession. The organizations experienced more disruptions than ever in the past years. These disruptions can ruin the organizations or make it difficult to survive. This is where Business Continuity Management (BCM) plays an integral role to smoothly run the business without any interruption.

It is very important for the endurance of the business. It is a method design to ensure that the functions of an organization can manage or restore promptly in the event of an internal or external occurrence. One of the most important objectives of the BCM is to reduce the legal, financial and reputational; damage of these events which results, an increase in the profitability of a business.

Definition of Business Continuity Management:

We all need the support services that we often take for granted to be available to us 24/7 and whenever needed. Right from the telephone that we use to the internet connection; any downtime that this service faces view unfavorably by us. But, given the uncertainties of the 21st century where a minor dislocation somewhere can have a cascading effect on the infrastructure, there is a need for BCM.

“The holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts to business operations those threats; if realized, might cause, and which provides a framework for building organizational resilience with the capability of an effective response; that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand, and value-creating activities.”

Simply put, the term denotes the recovery of the business or the service from an outage or disruption. The rapidity with which the service restore depends on how well the business continuity was planned for and managed during the downtime and subsequent recovery. They have been at the forefront of corporate planning in recent years; because of the interconnected and integrated global economy where one outage to one service threatens the whole chain involved.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of Cure” – Benjamin Franklin . “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra .

Other things;

Business continuity management (BCM) refers to the management of core conceptual resources; that address future threats to a business and help business leaders handle the impacts of these threats. This term is in the same vein as others, like business continuity planning (BCP); where business leaders try to identify and address potential crises before they occur.

It defines as a holistic management process that identifies potential impacts; that threaten an organization and provides a framework for building resilience; with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its stakeholders, reputation, brand, and value-creating activities.

The Theory of Business Continuity Management explain below;

In theory, They replicates crisis management to a great extent; which has grown rapidly over the past decades, with the main aim of eliminating the focus of social and technological problems. Crisis management approach and Information systems (IS) defense is the foundation of BCM. The evolution of BCM started in the 1970s, identifying the main 3 stages of growth. The first stage, “technology mindset” during the 1970s was limited to the protection of corporate mainframe computers. After the advent of personal computers to end-users in the 1980s leading to the vast quantity of computer users in organizations, resulted from a rise in the number of transactions, compliance became regulation and legal requirement. This second stage was identified as the “auditing mindset”.

The final stage “value mindset” in the 1990s became more focused on the requirements of the business; where BCM can act to add value to the organizations. At this time of moment, the BCM approach became more efficient by including improved protection for the whole organization, customers & suppliers, social and technical processes. The technology and auditing mindset was limited to the protection of IT. Due to the increased use of technology over the past decade organizations are more dependent on it; which brings about a new risk for the business.

Theory part 01;

Some of the businesses completely rely on IT and operates day and night. A very small interruption can cause considerable loss of revenue and customer which results in damage to business reputation. 25% of Companies who faced IT crisis from 2 to 6 days went bankrupt immediately whereas 93% of the companies filed for bankruptcy in a year that lost their core data for 10 days. In this escalating global business world and the integration of various economies generates fresh challenges; that have encouraged the development of BCM. The recent recession has had more influence over outsourcing to save the production and labor cost.

Supply chain risk is greater than ever as new risks are coming from international economies. Companies like GAP and Nike found that these can have a poor impact on the reputation of the company. A little loss or delay from a single supplier can have a bad effect on the organization. BCM plays an important role to manage supply chain disruptions, it also adds to the development of BCM. Extreme weather and climate change are seen to be affecting the growing organization’s operations.

Theory part 02;

Major events in the past for instance September 11, 2001, World Trade Centre terrorist attack; July London buses and underground terrorist attack, the 2000 energy crisis, pandemic flu more recently swine flu; and, natural disasters like Tsunami, latest in Japan, all these events have a major influence on the development of BCM and created more importance for the organizations to have a business continuity plan in place to avoid all the problems and disruptions caused by the upcoming unknown events.

IT, globalization, supply chain, climate and weather, terrorism, pandemic are growing disruptions organizations facing day by day. These risks link together; the crisis in one part may spread in various directions. BCM is extremely essential for the maintenance of the products and services while protecting the reputation of the business. BCM seeks the survival and profitability of the organization when disruption occurs. Improves the resilience capacity of the business against disruption; also recover from unexpected events. No doubt Business Continuity Management has started in terms of compliance; while protecting Information Systems (IS), now has developed to avoid various short; and long-term disruptions and adds value to the organizations. There are many drivers forcing reasons why an organization should have BCM in place.

Theory part 03;

Organizational reputation is the strategic asset of the company. Managing risk related to it, for example, negative news, bad feedback from customers, making financial losses, late payments, increasing stakeholder demands; has become the major driver for BCM. Furthermore,e it has developed into the main concern for most organizations. Non-timely wrong decisions, lack of communication after the crisis occurs can lead to financial and reputation damage to any organization. BCM does not limit to fight against disruption, it also makes positive effective communication; and, how to handle the crisis to minimize the damage caused by the crisis.

Financial and reputational damage directly associate with customers; while coping with the recession, it is very essential to retain the existing customers; and attract new customers besides meeting the needs of customers in a positive environment. Truly understanding the customer’s needs and mindset is paramount. Insurance provides the organization the comfort by transferring the risk, being able to repair or replace; the items in the event of loss or damage caused by the insured peril. Business Interruption (BI) Insurance covers loss in the profit for a limited period of time after the incident. It provides some cover for the financial loss but doesn’t cover the loss of reputation, loss of customers, loss of business, and loss of employee loyalty.

Theory part 04;

Moreover, BI cover limit to excess where losses incurred during; those excess periods of time not cover whereas BCM would prevent the losses incurred or minimize the impact incident occurred. Competitive advantage is another factor that drives Business Continuity Management. To win the confidence of customers and suppliers, the organizations should be able to prove; that they have appropriate BCM in place by ensuring a tested business continuity plan . It improves customer trust and brand reputation by creating a competitive advantage. The organizations that have BCM in place the leading responsibility remains with the senior management and board.

Although the organizations that have specific BCM departments tend to be rising. Uncertainty lies in the future; with the rise in various natural disasters like Tsunami, terrorist attacks, etc ‘Business continuity management has become inevitable. They help businesses go through these difficult times making sure of their survival in the market. BCM however, like all other good things also has its dark sides; which without appropriate considerations can lead to a complete failure. Some of the issues that may face BCM include financial issues; where the majority of the company doesn’t have sufficient resources to have a business continuity management in place.

Theory part 05;

It also requires human resources to make sure of its success; which might also be not available to the organization but as the environment in which organizations conduct their operation is highly dynamic to ensure that necessary actions should take to make sure that the organization has the resources for BCM to make sure of its survival in times of incidents. Moreover, as It is highly demanding with certain needs in terms of resources most of the senior managers tend to retrieve from it but its importance has been seen in the last few years where companies were swallowed by the giant recession that the world faced and is still recovering from.

Hence measures should take and their importance should alarm the management of organizations. Apart from resources and management, BCM also threatens by the fact the there might be over-analysis of business. The analysis should perform in the part of the business that is important or is directly related to BCM rather than analyzing the non-relevant part of the business. This can assure by making allowing the head of the BCM project to decide the part of the business that has to analyze. Another factor that might lead to failure of Business Continuity Management is too much attention to risk; which can lead to hindrance in the way of the project and the manager’s will to paralyze the project to save themselves from risk.

Theory part 06;

Analysis of risk is, however, important to make sure of the success; but, when over-done it tends to cause hindrance rather than motivating the success of the project. Therefore, an accurate amount of risk analysis should perform by the organization. It is usually making too complex and time-consuming; which is another factor that causes hindrance whereas a good BCM practice will be easy, flexible, and less time-consuming. One of the biggest hindrances along with resources in BCM is the belief where most of the organization believes; that they don’t require one or they might be never hit by a disaster.

However, BCM is not only meant for disaster it might come in any face i.e. terrorist attacks, power or system failure, etc. Therefore, every organization irrespective of its size needs to have a BCM so that there is always a business continuity plan in times of crisis. The investment in business continuity is worthy; because of the value, it adds to the organization in a particular competitive advantage. On the other hand, the world economic crisis has a key impact on business continuity management. If we think we will die tomorrow then we will not do anything the same is the case with BCM. If organizations assume that they will shut down the business due to the financial and economic slump that avoids the concept of business continuity completely.

Theory part 07;

The concept of having BCM in place has been misunderstood in some cases. The likelihood of BCM to be effective in times of disruption depends on if a company has a business continuity plan whereas companies without business continuity are unable to survive. In short BCM act as a helping tool for organizations whether in times of recession or minor interruption. It is therefore complementary to the process of risk management; which analyzes the risk exposure and possible consequences of these risks to the business. It doesn’t just focus on the disruptions but also brings out the key improvements for the product and services required for the survival of the business.

However, with the help of BCM, all the businesses can fight throw recession if implemented appropriately. In addition, it assists in understanding the functions of organizations closely and deeply to enhance the performance and profitability; while protecting and enhancing the reputation and brand value.

Theory part 08;

The most challenging phase is implementing Business Continuity Management in the organization. Serious difficulties face by managers while dealing with employees, customers, and suppliers. Their practice is new and becoming more common. Communication plays the chief role in the BCM implementation process.

Possibly it should involve all levels of the organization so everyone should be aware of identifying the main threats and try to eliminate them. The continuity plan must test and maintain at all times to ensure it works when the incident occurs. The need for BCM is more than ever mostly in times of recession as it acts as a useful tool for saving cost while improving the financial state of the business. Organizations exercise BCM to protect their brand, reputation, people, and bottom line. In addition, it provides the foundation for attracting new customers. BCM is a great asset in times of recession. It must understand that BCM not only adds value by preventing disruptions but also recover quickly from the incident that occurred.

What does mean Business Continuity Management (BCM) Explanation

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Nageshwar Das

Nageshwar Das, BBA graduation with Finance and Marketing specialization, and CEO, Web Developer, & Admin in www.ilearnlot.com.

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Benefits of Business Continuity Management

Avoid surprises.

Prioritize critical functions, find key dependencies, and create plans to protect vital assets.

Create plans that work

Identify and close gaps in continuity plans by performing tabletop and other plan exercises.

Recover more quickly

Reduce crisis impact with plans, including secondary site definitions and predefined runbooks.

Make fast, informed decisions

Understand dependencies and set recovery time and point objectives to prioritize critical risk.

Features of Business Continuity Management

Business impact analysis.

Find and prioritize business services to produce recovery time and point objectives (RTO and RPO).

Continuity planning

Scope plans to ensure personnel and assets are protected and functioning quickly after a disaster.

Recovery plan exercising

Practice plans during normal operations to ensure they’re up to date and accurate.

Crisis management

Activate continuity plans and monitor ongoing completion of recovery tasks during a crisis event.

Additional features

Common data application.

Use CMDB data to monitor against risk tolerance and automatically inform business impact analysis.

Gap identification

Find recovery gaps between key elements when analyzing business impact or mapping CMDB dependencies.

Scenario analysis

Conduct a range of disaster scenarios and test the steps your business can take to return to normal.

Case Studies

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Operational Resilience Management

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What is business continuity management.

Business Continuity Management  (BCM) has moved higher and higher up the agenda of organisations since the COVID-19 pandemic. But what is Business Continuity Management and how do you make sure you get it right at your organisation?

Business Continuity Management 101

In short, BCM is a set of policies, processes and plans designed to ensure that an organisation can maintain critical operations during a disruption. The overall objective is to ensure that organisations can uphold essential services at a tolerable predefined level, regardless of the disruption or its timing.

BCM policies, processes and plans are not reactive, but rather proactive measures that are put into place prior to a disruption based on an organisation’s risk appetite and potential threats, to safeguard operations brand reputation. BCM should be considered as a continuous cycle of measuring business continuity capabilities across an organisation, defining gaps, and developing an executable programme of continuous improvement.

A tailored Business Continuity plan can give a business a competitive advantage. Unprepared businesses must focus their energies on managing the disruption, while those that are more resilient can continue to focus on securing and even growing revenues.

“We wanted to look beyond the traditional BCM norms with a focus on better anticipating future business risk, while having solid foundations to minimise the risk of whatever unprecedented issues and potential threats may arise. This led us to work with 4C Strategies.” Director of Security and Resilience – Openreach

Business Continuity Management Standards – ISO 22301

The second edition of The International Standard for Business Continuity Management, ISO 22301:2019 defines the purpose for BCM as to “ prepare for, provide and maintain controls and capabilities for managing an organisation’s overall ability to continue to operate during disruptions. ”

It then goes on to list different organisational benefits, including:

“4C Strategies have contributed to our business continuity management and strategic crisis programme with their expertise as well as with their flexible and innovative working methods. This was key in preparing us for the ISO 22301 certification of our production facilities.” Niclas Johansson, Global Business Continuity Manager – Cytiva, GE Healthcare Life Sciences

Supporting standards for Organisational Resilience

Beyond ISO 22301, there are a number of other standards that pertain to effective BCM that should be acknowledged and followed where appropriate by an organisation to increase resilience to disruptions.

These include:

The  Business Continuity Institute  (BCI) refers to Business continuity Management as a framework embedded into an organisation to identify threats and the impact to operations they pose. A BCM plan is then created and continually validated with the goal of enabling you to re-establish business operations as quickly as possible in the event of a disruption. A number of 4C consultants are certified to  FBCI, MBCI and CBCI level , based on their extensive experience and training as business continuity practitioners.

Watch the 4C Strategies & BCI webinar

Our experts teamed up with the Business Continuity Institute for a webinar on post COVID-19 BCM. You can watch “ From Compliance to Capability – what does ‘good’ look like in a post-COVID era? ” by clicking below:

Three pillars of organisational resilience

Business Continuity Management is a governance issue that together with Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and Incident & Crisis Management (ICM) interrelate and create organisational resilience. These are the three key pillars that should form part of any organisation’s resilience program as can be seen in the 4C Strategies Resilience Model below. The model also includes the key foundational attributes of any proactive resilience plan, namely cybersecurity and capability development.

business continuity management what does it do

Handling major disruptions – the need for effective BCM

Regardless of industry –  public  or private – all organisations can be subject to a major disruption at any time. Increased dependencies on IT and the security risks that come with it, as well as the growth in disinformation by antagonists, means the risks of incidents and major disruptions are greater and closer than ever before. Thus, building resilience is essential.

Major disruptions can be classed into the following categories:

Regardless of the disruption it’s important to follow the activity steps – as seen below – to manage the response. At each point it’s advisable to assess the organisation’s response before moving ahead.

BCM graph

A structured BCM strategy for increased resilience

Implementing a structured BCM strategy across an organisation will have an extensive impact on an organisation’s eco-system, which brings with its wide-reaching benefits on multiple levels.

Digitalising Business Continuity for more effective results

The  Exonaut® Business Continuity Manager , is a web-based and mobile solution designed to digitalise, test and invoke business continuity plans. Exonaut BCM forms part of the Exonaut readiness management platform, with fully integrated solutions for  risk management ,  incident and crisis management ,  compliance management  and  training and exercises .

See Exonaut BCM in action

See a demo of our Exonaut software solutions for your risk, business continuity, crisis and exercise management needs.

Implementing a BCM strategy – a lifecycle perspective

Whether you are looking to implement business continuity management methodology for the first time or wish to make BCM a part of everyday operations – something that has become more common since the pandemic struck – taking a lifecycle perspective is essential. This will ensure the organisation remains resilient even when operations change, new trends evolve or the political sphere alters.

BCM methodology graph

Any BCM strategy must consider how business continuity policies will be implemented, controlled and validated at organisational and unit level to ensure success. The 4C BCM methodology is ideal for this.

The 4C BCM methodology

Get started: Increase organisational resilience with effective BCM

At 4C Strategies we can help you get started with BCM or help you grow your BCM capabilities. With over 20 years of experience we offer a unique  combination of expert consultant services with leading BCM/organisational resilience software to support your organisation. From the public sector, to international finance institutes to global manufacturers and telecom providers, we can help any organisation to be better prepared for the current or next major disruption.

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What does CARMA mean in MANAGEMENT

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CARMA meaning in Management in Business

CARMA mostly used in an acronym Management in Category Business that means Continuity And Recovery Management Associates

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COMMENTS

  1. What does mean Business Continuity Management (BCM)?

    Business continuity (BC) defines as the capability of the organization to continue the delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruptive incident

  2. Business Continuity Management Charter

    1 Province of Nova Scotia Business Continuity Management Charter Department, Agency or Commission Name Business Continuity Coordinator Name 3/14/2014. 2 Program Charter for Business Continuity Management Program

  3. Business Continuity Planning, Or What To Do When Stuff Happens

    By implementing business continuity strategies, including proactive processes, contingency plans, and supply gap mitigation plans, this challenge was addressed and gaps in supply were averted. Business continuity can be maintained by analyzing

  4. What is Business Continuity Management?

    Business Continuity Management (BCM) has moved higher and higher up the agenda of organisations since the COVID-19 pandemic ... In short, BCM is a set of policies, processes and plans designed to ensure that an

  5. C.A.R.M.A: What does CARMA mean in Business? Continuity

    CARMA is most commonly used in the MANAGEMENT terminology. CARMA mostly used in an acronym Management in Category Business that means Continuity And Recovery Management Associates