COVID-19: Business Continuity Management

Business disruptions can come in many forms. It can be external to the organization such as a global pandemic, natural disasters, economic recession, shortage of suppliers, sudden loss in demand, or even sudden increase in demand, as well as internal to the organization, such as staff turnover, insufficient expertise, or data loss. Covid-19 for instance had caused a sudden halt in daily business operations, which, as a result, brought about adverse effects to many businesses. However, the challenges and predicaments faced by organizations during a disruption could have been dealt with better with the corresponding impacts greatly minimized, if effective business continuity management were in place. As for how the saying by Mary Pickford goes – “The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power” –, businesses could prepare themselves if a second wave of Covid-19 were to actually hit the world, or, for any sort of business contingencies by implementing an organization-wide Business Continuity Management (BCM). This course offers participants complete training on the development of an organization-wide BCM that is in line with ISO 22301:2019, alongside actual and fully customizable documents, checklists, and templates that can be immediately used by the entire organization.

Course Outline

Module 1: Fundamentals of a Business Continuity Management System (BCMS)

• Concept of business continuity
• Important elements in a BCMS
• The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model in a BCMS

Module 2: Context of BCMS in the Organization

• Understanding of the organization and its context
• Needs and expectations of interested parties
• Scope of the business continuity management system

Module 3: Leadership in BCMS

• Leadership and management commitment
• Business Continuity Policy
• Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities

Module 4: BCMS Planning

• Actions to address risks and opportunities
• Business continuity objectives and plans to achieve them
• Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities

Module 5: Organization Support in BCMS

• Allocation of resources
• Attainment of required competences
• Awareness on organization’s BCMS
• Internal and external communications
• Documented information

Module 6: Managing Operations within BCMS

• Operational planning and control
• Business impact analysis (BIA)
• Risk assessment
• Business continuity strategy and solutions
• Business continuity procedures
  • Incident response structure
  • Warning and communication
  • Business continuity plans
  • Recovery
• Exercise and test programme

Module 7: Performance evaluation of BCMS

• Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation of BCMS
• Internal audit
• Management review

Module 8: Improvement of BCMS

• Nonconformity and corrective action
• Continual improvement