Ready to start your BCM adventure? Awesome...!!! Allow me to show you the starting point to your 10,000 miles journey (pssttt... this is not the First Step yet).
Don't be surprised that many people do not know or ever heard of BCM - Business Continuity Management. Even for those people that asked you to enroll into a BCM related training (and willingly pay for the fee)... may actually knew very little about what BCM is.
Unless you are in a financial or banking industry, BCM is a fairly new thing to many organizations, especially in Malaysia and the region. They are more familiar with Emergency Response, Risk Management, Disaster Recovery... but not BCM.
The good news is that BCM is gaining interest by the industry mainly due to two (2) main reasons:
- Customer start asking for BCM and insisted that BCM to be clearly spelled and included in the business contract
- Requirement by regulators (and customers) for an organization to be certified (or in compliance) to international standards such as the ISO27001, ISO22301, BS25999 etc
So you see... to many organizations the implementation of BCM is mainly business driven, and not about ensuring continuity of the company in the event of disaster.
I will show you how you can take advantage of this fact when presenting your case to the top management. But for now...
STEP #0: TO REALIZE THAT YOU ARE A PIONEER OF BCM
You attended a professional course, and came back to your office... voila... suddenly you are the MASTER of BCM. Within days or weeks, you start to realize that people start to point at you whenever there is a task, no matter how small as long as it has some flavor of crisis management, or disaster or business continuity... you are the man (or lady) for the job.
Management team will start to hound you for BC Plans, DR Plans, Crisis Plans etc... and it will get worst if any of your customers are coming to assess/audit your company's BCM readiness. At this point of time you might start to think... "what kind of mess you had yourself in... arrrghhh!!!"
Hey... relax!!! Take a deep breath and smell the roses (or hot pizza or anything that might comfort you).
Pssttt... listen to me... "you are a BCM Pioneer!". It is very important for you to realize and accept the fact that as a pioneer, not only you are the most knowledgeable person in your organization on BCM, you may also be the one and only person that are responsible of the topic.
I'm not trying to scare you out. What I'm trying to tell you is that while you might be all alone there... DON'T BE AFRAID. Because there are many of "us" in this universe that are willing to help and hold your hands throughout your BCM journey.
I will tell you more on the advantages of being a Pioneer in my next post. But for now, take time and look around (or ask Mr. Google) on how other people or organizations are implementing BCM. It will open up your eyes of what you have learned in theory may not be the same in a real world application.
Oh... You might also want to check related topics too such as: Risk Management, Business Resiliency, Crisis Management, Disaster Recovery etc.
Don't worry... be happy!!! I'll be back soon...
Your BCM Mentor,
SHARIMAN AZEZE OTOH
(aka CYBERAZEZE)
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