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Business Continuity Management
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
— US General George S Patton
Business continuity management

As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, Switzerland-based companies are not immune to disruptive events. How would your business cope in the event of an IT systems failure, cyberattack, fire or flood? Would operations grind to a halt, or smoothly continue running uninterrupted? Your answer will largely depend on the effectiveness of your Business Continuity Management (BCM) programme.

Whether you're considering business continuity for the first time, want an objective appraisal of your organisational resilience or need guidance towards certification, Resilience Guard, the Switzerland-based specialists in business continuity consultancy, can help. We offer a menu of business continuity consultancy services that enable you to choose as much, or as little, help as you need.

Recognising each client is unique, our expert consultants craft bespoke solutions to meet your specific challenges within the available budget.

Our business continuity services fall into these main areas:

  • Creating a BCM framework – everything from conducting a Business Impact Analysis and developing an ISO 22301-aligned BCM strategy to training, exercising and review.
  • Crisis management
  • Risk management
  • Business assurance
  • Software solutions
  • Organisational resilience

Business Impact Analysis

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
- Confucius

A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is the foundation of any credible business continuity plan. It involves methodically identifying your technical, process and resource risks and assessing them according to their business impact to help you pinpoint your most critical business procedures. At the end of the exercise, you will be able to:

  • Identify critical activities essential to the continued supply of your business's products and services.
  • Assess the impact of disruption to those activities on the business.
  • Prioritise the necessary systems to support critical activities and set acceptable recovery timescales (such as Recovery Time Objectives, Recovery Point Objectives and your Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption).
  • Identify interdependencies within your IT systems, supply chain, outsourcing partners and any other interested parties.

Business continuity management strategy

"Just because the river is quiet does not mean the crocodiles have left."
- Malay proverb

Whether your goal is to attain ISO 22301 accreditation, reassure regulators, satisfy client auditors or improve organisational resilience, a continuity management strategy will help you achieve your objectives.

Once you've laid the groundwork by identifying the critical activities and resources that support key products and services, Resilience Guard's consultants will work with you to define Recovery Time Objectives based on the findings of the all-important Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessment.

Our experienced consultants will develop a tailormade business continuity management strategy to meet your specific business needs. This will encompass all aspects of your operation including your workforce, premises, technology and supply chain vulnerabilities.

Resilience Guard can provide vital additional services including business continuity management (BCM) documentation, BCM training, BCM exercising, business continuity monitoring and evaluation; and business continuity management system (BCMS) maintenance to bring your BCM strategy to life.

Business continuity management documentation

Customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders need to know that you have clearly set out business continuity plans in place to deal effectively with any kind of disruption involving your people, buildings, infrastructure and technology. A simple, workable plan is also essential to demonstrate compliance with the international standard for business continuity management, ISO 22301.

'Simple' is the key word here. Research has shown that at times of extreme stress people's reading and comprehension levels drop by an average of four grade levels[1]. In fact, it's recommended that emergency plans and procedures are written at a grade 6 reading level. There is no point creating a huge volume that lies unused, gathering dust on a shelf. In fact, many plans today are also available electronically so they're accessible at anytime, anywhere.

Resilience Guard can help you create the vital documentation necessary to establish, implement and maintain the management continuity procedures that will ensure business as usual in the event of potentially disruptive incidents. These plans need to be regularly updated to respond to new threats and changing internal and external conditions.

Business continuity management exercises

"An untested plan is only a strategy."
- Richard Gagnon

Testing your business continuity plan is the only way to prove it will work when needed. Testing highlights any dangerous false assumptions, outdated information or omissions in the plan so you can rectify these shortcomings before you need to rely on your plans in a real-life incident. From a desktop check, plan walk-through or crisis simulation to a limited rehearsal or full-blown exercise, Resilience Guard can plan and implement tests that check whether your business continuity plans are fit-for-purpose.

Business continuity monitoring and evaluation

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
- Winston Churchill

Resilience Guard uses tried-and-tested processes to monitor, measure, analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of your business continuity management system (BCMS). This includes:

  • Setting appropriate performance metrics
  • Monitoring compliance with your BCMS objectives and international standards
  • Maintaining historical evidence of BCMS performance
  • Recording results of evaluations and subsequent corrective actions
  • Periodic reviews to evaluate compliance with Switzerland's legal and regulatory requirements, as well as industry best practice enshrined in ISO 22301
  • Regularly assessing performance at planned intervals and whenever significant changes occur within the business.

Business continuity management training

Switzerland-based business continuity consultancy Resilience Guard offers comprehensive business continuity management (BCM) training to improve understanding of business continuity within the wider organisation and create a risk-aware mindset to improve organisational resilience. Training includes:
  • Introduction to business continuity and ISO 22301
  • Training for BCM teams
  • Media training for BCM teams
  • Advanced business continuity management training
  • Bespoke BCM training with content tailored to your specific needs

Business assurance

You may think that obtaining business assurance in the form of ISO 22301 certification for your BCMS is a luxury and that you can rely on your testing activity to give you the confidence that all is working smoothly. However, this approach means you miss out on all the advantages that getting an official seal of approval for your business continuity management system brings, namely:
  • The ability to monitor progress of your BCMS towards maturity
  • Evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of your BCMS to the business
  • Identifying areas for improvement
  • Informed funding and resource decisions
  • A competitive edge
Switzerland-based Resilience Guard consultancy has the know-how and experience to help you build a business continuity management system (BCMS) that is right for your organisation and maintain it to the highest global standards.

Our consultants can steer you through the accreditation process and give your customers, suppliers and partners the confidence that comes with independent business assurance.

BCMS maintenance

Like all business management systems, your business continuity management system needs to be maintained on a continuous basis to ensure contacts, systems and procedures remain up-to-date and reflect organisational changes. Switzerland-based Resilience Guard GmbH can provide support with what can be a time-consuming and laborious task, giving you the reassurance that your business continuity management system can be relied on when it is needed most.

Contact us to discuss how we could help your organisation.
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