What is ISO 22301?
Recent spell of Covid19 pandemic, heavy rains coupled with unexpected climate changes in various parts of the world, floods in Chennai and landslide in Kedarnath are just a few examples of disasters or disruptions in business. Organizations who had strategized continuity of business could continue with minimum downtimes and loss of life or revenue during such crisis. Others found it difficult to survive. Some even closed. This is where business continuity management system in line to organizational business strategies comes to our rescue. International Organization for Standardization has published a highly effective business continuity management system standard called ISO/IEC 22301:2019. It is gaining popularity across the globe as a framework for continuing business within management and customer allowed downtimes and with minimum impact on service or product delivery. The standard provides requirements for a management system to protect against, reduce the likelihood of business disruptions, and ensure fastest recovery of business from disruptive incidents.
Benefits:
- Identify and manage current and future disruptions to your business
- Take a proactive approach to minimizing the impact of disruptive incidents
- Identify and keep critical functions up and running during times of crises
- Minimize downtime during disruptions and improvement in recovery times
- Demonstrate resilience to customers, suppliers, and marketing efforts
The standard can be used by organizations of all sizes and types. These organizations will be able to obtain accredited certification against this standard and so demonstrate to legislators, regulators, customers, prospective customers, and other interested parties that they are adhering to best practices in Business Continuity arena.
Accreditation and compliance bring reputational, motivational, and financial benefits to your organization, bringing customers who have greater confidence that you can deliver products and services at agreed performance levels even during the crisis. BCMS enhances your organization’s ability to create delighted customers who are the best assurance for repeat business.
COVID-19 and its variants are increasing the need for ISO 22301
We at BSCIC have seen a significant rise in the number of organizations looking to implement an ISO 22301 based Business Continuity Management System following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic had a devastating impact on businesses across the globe. Many of them are now looking to protect themselves against further unexpected disruptions and therefore adopting BSMS based on ISO 22301:2019.
Need of BCMS and process to achieve it:
BCMS enables identification of all your business-critical processes, conducts ‘business impact analysis’ for each of them for all possible negative events which may adversely impact those processes, and proactively identifies any possible risks to those processes. Business continuity strategy and plans are then prepared, employees trained and infrastructure to deal with possible disasters or disruptions is raised and tested. The organization thus prepares effectively for dealing with any possible untoward incidents. Implementing and maintaining an effective BCMS will significantly increase your organization's resilience to disasters and/ or disruptions.
Migration:
ISO 22301 was published for the first time in 2012. It was among the first ISO standards to use the High-Level Structure (HLS). It establishes requirements and best practices for building more robust and resilient businesses capable of dealing with disruptive incidents. Compliant organizations respond more effectively, recover faster, and are thus able to reduce the impact on people, products, and the organization's bottom line.
ISO 22301:2019, a revised version of ISO 22301, was released on October 31, 2019. The Technical Committee ISO/TC 292 Security and Resilience created it. It is made up of over 60 National Standards Bodies. The goal of the revision was to reflect ongoing changes and developments in the world of business continuity, bringing more value to those implementing the standard.
Transition timeline
Due to Covid-19 and the dispositions given by IAF, the transition arrangements and connected timelines are extended with 6 months; the transition end date is changed from 31 October 2022 to 30 April 2023.
How to prepare for implementation of the new version?
We recommend you start preparing for the transition as early as possible and plan properly to incorporate needed changes into your management system.
Recommended steps for the transition:
- Get to know the contents and requirements of the new standard. If you are a current user of the 2012 standard, you should focus on the changes implied by the revised standard.
- Ensure that relevant personnel in your organization are trained and understand the requirements and key changes.
- Identify gaps which need to be addressed to meet the new requirements and establish an implementation plan.
- Implement actions and update your management system to meet the new requirements.
