Business continuity planning (BCP) "identifies an organization's exposure to internal and external threats and synthesizes hard and soft assets to provide effective prevention and recovery for the organization, while maintaining competitive advantage and value system integrity”. It is also called business continuity and resiliency planning (BCRP). A business continuity plan is a roadmap for continuing operations under adverse conditions such as a storm or a crime. In the US, governmental entities refer to the process as continuity of operations planning (COOP).
Any event that could impact operations is included, such as supply chain interruption, loss of or damage to critical infrastructure (major machinery or computing/network resource). As such, risk management must be incorporated as part of BCP.
In December 2006, the British Standards Institution (BSI) released an independent standard for BCP — BS 25999-1. Prior to the introduction of BS 25999, BCP professionals relied on information security standard BS 7799, which only peripherally addressed BCP to improve an organization's information security procedures. BS 25999's applicability extends to all organizations. In 2007, the BSI published BS 25999-2 "Specification for Business Continuity Management", which specifies requirements for implementing, operating and improving a documented business continuity management system (BCMS).
In 2004, the United Kingdom enacted the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, instructing emergency services and local authorities to actively prepare for emergencies. Local authorities were given the legal obligation to actively lead promotion of business continuity practices in their respective jurisdictions.
Read more about Business Continuity Planning: Solution Design, Implementation, Testing and Organizational Acceptance, Maintenance
Famous quotes containing the words business, continuity and/or planning:
“Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these,—but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust,—some of them suicides.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“In the planning and designing of new communities, housing projects, and urban renewal, the planners both public and private, need to give explicit consideration to the kind of world that is being created for the children who will be growing up in these settings. Particular attention should be given to the opportunities which the environment presents or precludes for involvement of children with persons both older and younger than themselves.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)