Whether an international corporation or a small business, developing and utilizing
a Business Continuity Management (BCM) Plan protects companies and
their personnel, facilities, materials, and activities from the broad spectrum of risks
that face businesses and government agencies on a daily basis, whether at home or
abroad. Although crises are unpredictable, they are not unexpected. Disasters are
part of the human condition, whether they result from a tornado, an earthquake,
or a pandemic; from an industrial accident or a structural failure; or from criminal
activities or terrorist attacks. As the global business footprint increases, so do
the risks faced by companies, whether these are threats posed to extended supply
chains, result from organizational and technological dependencies, occur due
to political and social instabilities, effect information technology (IT) vulnerabilities,
result from maturing tactics by organized crime, insurgency and terrorist groups,
intrastate conflicts, or occur due to a myriad of natural disasters. While crisises can
be devastating in their effects, often companies focus more on market and credit
risk rather than on those risks that directly affect people. Despite being more personal
in nature, operational risk management has yet to mature sufficiently to reflect
the wide spectrum of interrelated threats facing companies within today’s dynamic
and evolving global commercial environment. While advances in technology and
management methodologies might increase an organization’s capacity to forecast
and plan for such catastrophic events, the ability of an individual or organization
to survive a crisis event relies often on the underresourced and frequently overlooked
field of operational contingency planning and crisis response—or business
continuity management.