#Roles #Responsibilities #Response

 “Building organisational resilience” has been escalated and emphasised as a core capability to ensure organisations can withstand the impact and results of major disruptions i.e. cyber incidents, Covid 19 pandemic, utility disruptions.

Organisations are rapidly investing in business continuity management (BCM) programmes, anticipating that it will safeguard them when the next big disaster strikes.

The following three fundamentals are key to establishing a BCM programme:

 #Roles #Responsibilities #Response

Roles: Set clearly defined roles at the initial stages of establishing the BCM programme. In setting the roles, consider the following:

• Who is in command during the disruption?
• Who takes control of the situation?
• Who communicate to the relevant stakeholders (internally as well as externally)?

Responsibilities: For the key role players i.e., BCM manager, BCM coordinator, crisis communications manager, BCM champions, BC plan owners, it is essential to set responsibilities for each role player in terms of the following phases:

• Pre-disaster: How to prepare.
• During the disaster: What actions to take.
• Post-disaster: How to improve the BCM capability based on the lessons learned.

Response: To ensure an effective response when the plans (i.e., business continuity plan, crisis management plan) are invoked it is imperative to consider and document the following:

• Disaster notification procedures.
• Escalation when the response plans are not functioning / delivering as intended.
• Stand down instructions and return to business-as-usual.

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