ISO 22301: 2019 Business Continuity Management System

Guidance for Consulting and Training provides qualification and training for ISO 22301: 2019 Business Continuity Management System, the international standard for managing, maintaining, and professionally improving business continuity, protecting it from all types of disruptions, and reducing the possibility of their occurrence in Saudi institutions. It was built to protect institutions from threats related to business interruption that may arise due to unexpected disruptions or disasters.

Loss of revenue, collapse of data risks, and failure to provide normal customer services according to service level agreements will cause disruptions to your institution. Therefore, the institution will be driven by the Business Continuity Management Systems Certification for the best ways to prepare for such possibilities. Regardless of the organization type, size, and nature, the extent to which these requirements are applied depends on the organization’s work environment and complexity.

Establishing an administrative system that helps business owners direct their business and activities towards the organization’s goals is one of the fundamentals of the success of the business continuity system in institutions, as the level of complexity in management systems varies between institutions according to their fields. In small companies, the administrative system is usually simple; Due to the small number of employees in it and due to the limited administrative and operational processes, the management is in the hands of its owner who determines the function of each employee in the institution and the way he contributes to achieving the goals of the institution without the need for complex processes and procedures. In contrast, large institutions need a complex and high-level administrative system to verify the proper functioning of operations and control monitoring processes to achieve the institution’s goals and fulfill its legal obligations.

The term management system is relatively new to business continuity system professionals despite its widespread use in other professional specialties, as it was used in this field to help institutions direct business and activities towards their goals; These systems follow best practices for organizing and implementing operations, and work to manage resources, policies, production and employees.

The management system is defined as an administrative function for developing the organizational structure, which is a framework of processes and procedures used to ensure that the organization can fulfill all the tasks required to achieve a set of business objectives, and is concerned with providing a model consisting of 4 elements (to establish, operate, maintain and improve) the management system and implementation capabilities that are consistent with managing expectations, and aims to cover many aspects of the organization’s operations, such as financial success, safe operation, product quality, customer relations, legislative and regulatory compliance, labor management, etc.

Advantages of ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management System

• Risk mitigation, limiting business disruption, and establishing appropriate controls to manage or eliminate those risks.
• Consistency of service and enhancing the organization’s reputation and credibility.
• Customer confidence and providing new business opportunities.
• Flexibility during interruptions or economic recessions as happened during the Corona period.
• Organizational change by increasing confidence in the organization’s recovery plans by ensuring smart and appropriate probability cases.
• Strengthen internal management and continuous internal improvement through audits.
• Maintain acceptable standards for customer delivery.
• Greater visibility of business risks externally and internally across the region enables the organization to adopt a preventive approach more quickly to minimize the impact of incidents and downtime when an incident occurs.
• Strengthens management commitment and ensures that customers, suppliers, and employees are shown commitment and take business continuity management seriously.
• Minimize financial losses by reducing costs.
• Maximize quality and performance to achieve competitive gains, attract more investors, and improve relationships with stakeholders and interested parties.
• Increase the ability to meet regulatory requirements and improve the ability to win competitions.
• Enhance the ability to respond to disruptions by providing costs to mitigate their impact.
• Clarifies the duty of care to employees and increases their engagement and understanding regardless of what happens.
• Ensure that adequate resources are available for business continuity testing and delivery.

Structure of the contents (elements) of the ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management System

• Scope
• Architectural references
• Terms and definitions
• Organizational context
• Leadership
• Planning
• Support
• Operations
• Evaluation
• Improvement

ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management Principles

• Risk analysis study.
• Business impact analysis.
• Business continuity governance.
• Exercises and tests.
• Training, awareness raising, and communication.
• Business continuity management assessment.

How to obtain ISO 22301:2019 Business Continuity Certificate

1. Awarding and Gap Analysis Process: Guidance Consulting and Training provides certification, assessment, and training services following the current ISO 22301 requirements. However, before certification is granted, an audit is conducted to identify the areas of high or high risk in your organization’s current business continuity management system and identify weaknesses. Our auditors can help you define the scope of the ISO 22301 gap analysis, and the flexibility to focus on the most critical points of your organization’s operations.
2. Integrated Assessment: Guidance Consulting & Training offers an integrated assessment service for organizations with multiple management systems including Quality Management, Environment, Occupational Health & Safety, and Information Security Management; benefiting from consistent assessment and control programs, while avoiding duplicative efforts to reduce costs.
3. Verification Services: Certification, verification, and validation services based on leading international standards on health and safety, environment, sustainability, energy management, information security, and much more.
4. Remote Audit: face-to-face audits are not always practical or effective, so we offer a remote audit service. It is effective and flexible, giving you technical expertise when and where you need it. Whether you need to reduce travel, have facilities in difficult-to-reach areas, or have complex infrastructure, our team of experts provides continuous accreditation services to support your organization, anytime, anywhere.

ISO 22301 Business Continuity Strategy

1. Identify a potential business strategy that will reduce the identified risks and assess the risks to levels that management finds acceptable. Categories should be addressed:

• Risk Mitigation: Identify opportunities to reduce the likelihood of disruption and strategies to reduce disruption impact.
• Incident Response: Define the incident response process through actions independent of threats, charter the team (essential and alternate personnel) responsible for leading the response to a disruptive event, and define the methods that the active team will follow, meet, assess situations, and make decisions.
• Recovery Activities and Resources: Identify alternative sources of resources or alternative methods of performing the required activities to meet the variances and obligations related to the disruption (alternative facilities, personnel, equipment, information technology, third parties) as well as manual solutions if application resources are not available.

2. Identify the resources needed to implement each category of the business continuity strategy:

• Estimate the cost associated with implementing and maintaining the strategy.
• Include all resources identified in the business impact analysis required during disruption, such as people, information, data, facilities, transportation, partners, and suppliers.
• When selecting appropriate resources, multiple strategic options (with pros, cons, and cost estimates) should be considered to address each risk. The management approach enables the measurement of investment requirements against the organization’s risk appetite to determine the most efficient strategy.

Being qualified for ISO 22301:2019 Business Continuity will help you manage challenging situations in your organization, maintain its image, and gain competitive advantages.

Guidance Consulting and Training Company has the necessary competencies and experience to help organizations and individuals implement international standards, improve business, and ensure compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements. Contact us now to benefit from the expertise of our specialized consultants.