Reason March 2007 - P07001 - FM Global

“Business continuity
management is an extension
of our philosophy that the majority
of all property loss is preventable, and
of our commitment to protecting the
value our clients’ businesses create,”
said Stuart Selden, assistant vice
president and manager, FM Global’s
Business Risk Consulting Group
(BRCG), international operations.
“We work to help them understand
BCM and how they can apply it.”
What is BCM?
The Business Continuity Institute
defines BCM as “a holistic management
process that identifies potential
impacts that threaten an organization
and provides a framework for building
resilience and the capability for an
effective response that safeguards
the interest of its key stakeholders,
reputation, brand and value-
creating activities.”
So what, exactly,
does that mean?
According to Selden, BCM is
“a business culture rather than a
project—a continual effort by all
[ 18 ] march 2007 reason
members of an organization to
help build resilient processes.
It’s a framework that combines
various elements of risk
management and related
disciplines, which can
ultimately lead to an actionoriented
document called
the business continuity
plan, or BCP.”
It’s important to
differentiate between
business continuity management and
business continuity planning, noted
Eric Jones, assistant vice president
and manager, BRCG’s U.S. operations.
“Business continuity planning,
or a business continuity plan, is just
one element of business continuity
management,” he said. “A BCP is
drawn from information-gathering
and risk assessments, and involves
assigning responsibilities to key
individuals, who then create recovery
strategies based on specific objectives.
Many organizations fail to
recognize there is plenty to do even
before they develop the plan.”
Why is BCM important?
Within any business, certain products
and services are deemed critical
to continued success because they
generate, or help generate, a large
proportion of value for the business.
It follows, then, that anything—either
inside or outside the organization—
that enables the delivery of the critical
products and services will, itself, be
considered critical to the business.
Because the failure of any critical
factor might prevent the delivery
of products and services, a business
needs to identify and protect all things
critical if it hopes to withstand a
disruption. “The business must be
sufficiently resilient in order to
achieve this,” Selden said.
How does BCM work?
The ideal outcome of BCM is called
“Design for Resilience,” which occurs
when an organization has internalized
BCM to the extent that all strategic
decisions—such as the development
of new products, services and
““
Business continuity management is an
extension of our philosophy that the majority
of all property loss is preventable, and of
our commitment to protecting the value
our clients’ businesses create.
Stuart Selden, assistant vice president and manager,
FM Global’s Business Risk Consulting Group
www.fmglobal.com