ISO 22301 – Business Continuity Management (Societal Security)

  • What is ISO 22301?

    Business continuity management (or societal security, as it is named in the ISO 22301 standard) is a global term covering all the systems, operating controls and measures an organisation should have in place for managing its overall business continuity risks, i.e. managing how you would carry on working in as seamless a manner possible in the event of a disruptive incident, such as fire, flood, systems failure, fraud, national of global pandemic, industrial espionage or even terrorist type actions.

    ISO 22301 is an internationally accepted standard providing a structured, systematic approach to the introduction and maintenance of effective business continuity management.

  • Business Continuity Management cycle

  • What are its benefits?

    • gives a greater chance of surviving a major incident
    • helps ensure continuity of supply
    • helps ensure compliance with legislation – if you are a “level 1 responder” (e.g. emergency services, local government) the Civil Contingencies Act requires you by law to have in place measures to deal with incidents
    • creates potential to lower insurance premiums – insurance is available to a certain extent for specific risks, but by being able to demonstrate, through ISO 22301 accreditation, that you have a sound business continuity management system you may be able to negotiate lower premiums

  • How we can help you implement and maintain it

    Our business continuity management experts can undertake the initial business impact analysis and risk assessment for your organisation and help you to determine an appropriate strategy and response to any potential incidents, followed – quite crucially – by creating bespoke scenarios to help you test and exercise your plans to see if they really work in practice. Additionally, we will ensure your business continuity management approaches are fully integrated into your operational and strategic planning processes.

    We can also support you throughout the ISO certification process, training managers and employees and conducting readiness reviews/gap analysis in preparation for certification audits – we only work with certification bodies approved by UKAS  or, outside of the UK, members of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).