Establishing Business Continuity Management Practices

Abstract

Business continuity is about ensuring the operability of an organization during disruptive events. Business continuity management is a systematic way of developing this capability. How to effectively establish business continuity practices within an organization? The objective was to develop a plan for initiating business continuity management in the client organization. The research included theoretical framework where the phenomenon of business continuity and its management was investigated from literature, complemented with ISO 22301:2019 and ISO/TS 22317:2015 standards. Additional knowledge of the phenomenon was received from data collection phase where experienced professionals were interviewed. The data was processed and analyzed to output results. The results suggested that the ISO 22300 series had not been applied as is and that it was seen as laborious. Sufficient business continuity management could be achieved by the resources available to the client. Business continuity management is about developing and changing the organization. It requires extensive commitment. Business continuity could be improved by acquiring appropriate understanding of the organization complemented with a general reaction model to disruptive events. If an organization truly understands its environment, obligations, resources, processes, and outputs it can analyze the effects from disruptions. Especially for a small organization, a thorough business continuity management system may prove to be an inefficient solution in improving its resilience.