What is a Business Continuity Program (BCP)?

BCP has been around for a long time but has gone through a major evolution in the last 10 years. There have been a number of drivers who at times pushed this confusion along. However, there are some major factors which have turned to be a lot more influential than others. In fact, the most influential practices which have contributed to importance of BCP today are:

 

  • Business Contingency Planning
  • Crisis & Emergency Planning & Management
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Crisis Scenario Planning
  • Regulatory Requirements & Corporate Governance

The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) has defined Business Continuity Management as:

 

"an holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation and value creating activities."

 

BCI, BCM Good Practices Guide

 

The term business continuity management has broadened the discipline's scope from that of business continuity planning, which is now just another constituent part. It talks about "building resilience", which moves us from the sense of reacting to recover from an event to becoming resilient to the event but what does this mean in practice? That, friends, is a topic for another day!!