The industry landscapes and business environment are constantly changing. Besides the normal change happening in business everyday there can also be global crisis like economic slumps, health pandemics, etc. making the survival of businesses even more difficult. Businesses also need to cope with unpredictable disruptions such as technical failure, fire outbreak, vandalism, or natural calamities. Clearly, operations in a business experience a lot of disruptions that arise from internal as well as external situations.
While ensuring operational continuity during such unforeseen events is a real challenge for a business, the ISO 22301 certification offers them the best solution. Being the international standard for Business Continuity Management Systems (BCMS), it helps a business to have appropriate responses when an erratic situation strikes. In simple words, ISO 22301 will enhance the capability of a business to respond to severe crises and get back to the normal state of operations faster.
If you are aware of the possible vulnerabilities in your industry landscape, you should get the ISO 22301 certification of BCMS. The next section provides you with simple tips to prepare your business for certification.
Easy Steps to Prepare Your Organisation for the ISO 22301 Certification
Understand the Key Principles of Business Continuity
The first step is about learning the principles on which the concept of business continuity is based. Those principles will help you understand the key purpose of the BCMS and what the scope and functions should be.
The principles that ground business continuity are:
- Responsibility of top management/board of directors
- Clear policy and objectives of business continuity
- Impact and risk management
- Periodic evaluation and analysis of the processes
- Proper communication of the continuity plans in the organisation
Perform a Pre-Audit/Gap Analysis
To get a suitable BCMS implemented in your organisation, you should perform an internal assessment of your processes. It is a great opportunity to learn about your existing processes. It is called as pre-audit or a gap analysis and helps to find the requirements of ISO 22301 that are not met by your organisation’s processes.
According to the analysis, you can determine the changes needed in your processes to meet the requirements and establish a firm BCMS.
Prepare the Documents
At this step, you need to create the documents that will support the changes in processes as required by the ISO standard. You should prepare all documents related to your business continuity policy, practices, and the BCMS.
Properly sorted documents are required to implement the changes and put the BCMS into real practice. Documents will provide clear instructions to the employees and make them aware of the changes needed for business continuity. Thus, you can ensure their full participation in business continuity management.
Implement the BCMS
Once the documents are prepared, it is time to ensure that the proposed changes in processes are executed. For that, you should provide training to employees and teach them about the process changes. When all the necessary changes are made correctly, the BCMS is assumed to be implemented. Then, it is time to perform an internal audit to identify any mistakes or non-conformities in newly improved processes against the standard.
If any non-conformities or issues are discovered, you should implement corrective actions to rectify them.
Get Ready for Certification
The last step involves choosing an accredited certification body and filling out an application form to register for the certification. They will send auditors to perform an on-site evaluation of your BCMS, better known as an external certification audit. When the auditors confirm the conformance of your BCMS with the ISO 22301 standard, they will get your BCMS certified.
Conclusion
Getting the ISO 22301 certification is a wise decision to ensure business continuity and protect your company from serious disruptions. It calls for the implementation of a robust BCMS that helps to deal with disruptive events in a proactive way. It makes your company resilient against all types of vulnerabilities and that strengthens your relationship with stakeholders.
So, if you have understood the importance of the ISO 22301 BCMS in today’s unstable and riskier business environment, follow this given guide to prepare your business for the certification.
