Written by Kiran Murthy | Naga Chinmai | Eishu Richhariya | 

What is ISO 22301 Certification?

ISO 22301 Certification provides a framework to plan, establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain and continually improve a business continuity management system (BCMS). It is expected to help organizations protect against, prepare for, respond to, and recover when disruptive incidents arise. It provides the framework for businesses to increase their resilience and enables the organization to deal with disruptive incidents.

Need for ISO 22301 Certification

Obtaining ISO 22301 Certification should be high on the priority list of organizations that must prove to their stakeholders that they can immediately overcome operational disruptions to provide continued and effective service. Gaining ISO 22301 Certification puts the organization within an individual group of companies committed to business resilience.

• It ensures compliance with industry standards.
• It safeguards the brand’s interest and integrity.
• It reduces the financial risk of an organization.
• It gives a competitive advantage to a company.
• It helps to protect critical business assets.

Benefits of ISO 22301

Why do you need a Business Continuity Management System (BCMS)?

Looking back, could you have planned for Covid? The effects of Covid-19 have significantly raised awareness for Business Continuity Planning. Most office-based firms have adapted and applied their plans for a hybrid model to work from home.  However, many others did not foresee the operational impacts, including service providers and supporting customers.

For most organizations, today might be business as usual. However, problems can happen when you least expect them. Whether it’s a cyber-attack, an IT-related issue, building unavailability due to natural disasters, a planned outage, or a supply chain disaster. We’re all at risk, and sooner or later, every business will have to deal with such issues.

If there is no plan, the outcome could be much worse than they need to be.

Organizations can opt for BCMS, ISO 22301:2019, one of the best suitable options as it lays down the requirements that an organization can use for understanding the needs and necessities for business continuity policy and objectives. It helps to protect business and reputation, stay agile and resilient, and to minimize the impact of unexpected interruptions. 

Implementation Flowchart

RECOMMENDATION: DESIGNING YOUR ISO 22301 CERTIFIED BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN

A single disaster can put the entire organization’s structure in jeopardy. Here are a few best practises we can consider within the Information Security domain that can help keep the business running regardless of a disaster.

Process and Strategy to ensure their effectiveness

An organization cannot keep its operations running successfully without appropriate and realistic testing of its BCP/DR Plan regularly. Without this, the organization may not even know what is practically executable and what is not. Testing must be performed in a way that covers every process, from a younger failing process to the entire service being wiped out because of a tornado.  This gives a level of maturity to your plan over time and minimizes the recovery time during a disaster or crisis.

Enhance the Utilization of Virtualization

The objective must be to switch the users from the traditional environment to a virtualized environment smoothly, where they can continue their work and provide the services they always did. This helps build trust in the users, and predominantly towards the organization. It also allows the organization to continue its business seamlessly during a crisis.

Conducting Business Continuity Awareness & Training Program

Training & Awareness programs play an essential role in preparing employees and organizations for a crisis. These programs should be conducted regularly for each employee of an organization. For this, an organization can also create a Business Continuity Awareness Team, which performs regular Business Continuity Training & Awareness Programs and keeps track of the performance of every employee.