[4] [BCS] SSG Funded BCM Project: Evaluating the Business Continuity Strategy

Overview

At this stage, you would have completed your RAR and BIA workshops and are about to start the third funded BCM workshop organised in-house. This 1/2 day session conducted will focus on the Business Continuity Strategy phase. 

It is useful to note that in the revised ISO22301:2019 standard, this BC Strategies phase is also known as "BC Strategies and Solutions."  There is no major changes our approach as it emphasized that it should not be a grand strategy but rather on finding solutions to manage the specific risks and impacts.

This article is the fifth part of the "funded BCM Project" series.  This is the reading for participants embarking on a BCM implementation using a combination of training with funding from the Singapore government and consulting to develop, implement and finalize its BCM program for an organisation.

Once the requirements gathering phases of risk analysis and review (RAR), and business impact analysis (BIA), are complete, we would have sufficient information to start formulating business continuity strategies (BCS), the precursors of the final building of your business continuity plan (BC Plan).

The process of conducting the BCS phase in a funded BCM Project is as follows:

1. Supplementary Readings

1. Before the start of the workshop, participants will receive emails containing bite-size information (in the form of blogs) on business continuity strategies.

2. The purpose of doing so is to introduce participants to the key concepts ahead of the coming workshop.

3. Participants are strongly encourage to read the short articles and this will help you as a participant to optimize your time at the  BCS workshop by having a basic understanding of "what is BCS?" before you start the workshop.

What participants should do:

Participants are encouraged to read through the supplementary material and try to write down any questions they may have on BCS pertaining to their crtiical business functions.

2.  Workshop

1. Mitigation strategies
2. Response strategies
3. Recovery strategies

What participants should do (before coming to the workshop):

1. Participants are encouraged to read the email supplementary materials before the workshop and review the RAR and BIA findings for their business unit.
2. The soft copy BCS templates will be sent to participants before the workshop
3. Participants should load the templates into their laptops and have them available during the workshop.
4. Remember to bring to the workshop the templates from the previous RAR and BIA phases.

Participants should be advised that because the workshop is a 1-time group event, it is important that participants lock this event in their calendars. No repeat workshop will be conducted for absent participants and there is a possibility that the course subsidy is not funded if the participant is absent for more than 75% of the module.

3.  Consultation

After the workshop, participants will have one week to complete and submit the templates to their Organisation BCM Coordinator, who will consolidate the templates and send the batch to the consultant.  The gap of one week may be shorter depending on the project schedule provide to you by your project manager.

Post workshop, you will be submitting the template to the consultant for review.  A teleconversation or video conferencing consultation session (approx. 30 mins) has been arranged for individual departments to go through the templates with the consultants.

What should participants do:

1. Submit the business continuity strategies (BCS) templates to your Organisational BCM Coordinator on time
2. Before the consultation & assessment session, review your templates, and quickly read through the course materials
3. Attend the consultation session at the agreed and appointed time
4. If there are any changes required, submit a revised completed template to your Organisational BCM Coordinator.

The consultant will process the templates from all departments and write a report for submission to the organisation's management.

4. Next Session: Plan Development (PD)

Once this session is completed, you are now ready to attend the "Plan Development (PD)" workshop to be held in the afternoon session.

Should there be any turnover of your business unit BCM Coordinator after the completion of the project, you can send the incoming designated staff member to the next BCM course which is funded by Skillsfuture Singapore (SSG). Click on the link below to read on the courses suitable for them:

Competency Based Training to Update Current BCM Plans