75% of companies without a business continuity plan fail within three
years. Disruptive incidents can affect any organisation and occur at any
moment. ICT outages, cyber attacks, natural disasters, terrorist
attacks, pandemics, supply chain failures and other unexpected events
can all affect productivity and in many cases place a company's survival
in serious jeopardy. Business continuity planning is essential to
overcoming business disruptions, but too many companies prepare business
continuity plans and then shelve them, only for those plans to fail when
they're actually needed. 80% of companies that have not recovered from a
disaster within one month go out of business. A business continuity plan
that isn't validated isn't a plan at all - it's merely a strategy.
Indeed, in some cases an untested plan is worse than no plan at all. In
spite of this, only 30% of businesses actually validate their business
continuity plans. Product overview Business continuity planning is a
process of continual improvement, not a matter of writing a plan and
then putting your feet up. Attempting to validate every aspect of your
plan, however - particularly in a live rehearsal situation - could
create a disaster of your own making.Validating Your Business Continuity
Plan examines the three essential components of validating a business
continuity plan - exercising, maintenance and review - and outlines a
controlled and systematic approach to BCP validation while considering
each component, covering methods and techniques such as table-top
reviews, workshops and live rehearsals. The book also takes account of
industry standards and guidelines to help steer the reader through the
validation process, including the international standard ISO 22301 and
the Business Continuity Institute's Good Practice Guidelines. In
addition, it provides a number of case studies based on the author's
considerable experience - some of them successful, others less so - to
highlight common pitfalls and problems associated with the validation
process. Contents Introduction Standards and guidelines Business
continuity begins at home Defining your exercise programme Selected
scenarios Live rehearsal case studies It could happen to anyone,
couldn't it? Maintaining your BCMS Reviewing your BCMS Performance
appraisal Using consultants to help you exercise Training and education
Additional reference material About the author Robert A Clark is a
fellow of the Institute of Business Continuity Management, a fellow of
the British Computer Society, a member of the Business Continuity
Institute and an Approved BCI Instructor. He was employed by IBM for 15
years and Fujitsu for 11, working with clients on BCM-related
assignments. He is now a freelance business continuity consultant at
www.bcm-consultancy.com. Since 2014, he has been a part-time associate
lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he has delivered
BCM courses to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Move your
employees' BCP awareness from 'unconscious incompetence' to 'unconscious
competence'. Order Validating Your Business Continuity Plan today.
