This section includes the following items:

• The Good Practice Guidelines
• BCI Player
• Useful Links
• Industry Vacancies
• BCM Guides & Standards
• BC:24 Game

Business Continuity Management is defined as an holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation and value creating activities.

Its primary objective is to allow the Top Management of an organisation to continue to manage their business under adverse conditions, by the introduction of appropriate resilience strategies, recovery objectives, business continuity and crisis management plans in collaboration with, or as a key component of, an integrated risk management initiative.

Office of the University Secretary
Lecturer Grade 7: £37,382 - £45,941 per annum

We are seeking to appoint a personable and persuasive individual with a minimum of two years’ experience of project management (ideally gained within the higher education sector) to foster and lead a culture of understanding, appreciation and compliance with the principles of risk management, major incident planning and business continuity as they apply to the University of Reading. The successful candidate will maintain and develop the University’s corporate Risk Register and its business continuity and major incident plans, and will ensure that the significance of these activities permeates the whole institution.

Closing date: 14 June 2013. Interview date: 12 July 2013

To apply please visit www.reading.ac.uk/Jobs or call +44(0)118 378 6771.

Please quote the reference number PM13034.

We value a diverse workforce and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

The evening of Wednesday 4th April 2012 marked two notable events for the Australasian BCI Chapter – the celebration of its Fifth Anniversary since its establishment in 2007, as well as ther formal presentation of the BCI Annual Lecture 2012 hosted by KPMG.

Over 60 BCI members and guests attended the BCI Annual Lecture in KPMG’s offices on the edges of Darling Harbour, Sydney.

Guest speaker, Dr Robert Kay, Executive Director Incept Labs, stepped out from behind the lectern, overturning the anticipated formal structure promised by the event’s official title, to present the talk in the shape of an informal interview.  Tim Janes, President of the Australasian BCI Chapter, took on the “Parkinson” role acting as mediator and interviewer.

The subject under discussion, “CEO Perspectives on Organisational Resilience”, was based on a research paper, which analysed the results of meetings with more than 50 CEOs completed by Incept Labs during 2011.  The paper is the first in a series of research papers on organisational resilience being developed by the Attorney-General’s Department as a strategic imperative of the Australian Government.

The interview served up a synopsis of CEO views on what organisational resilience is; why they think about it that way; and the value proposition for pursuing resilience in their organisations.  The evening’s discussion raised some fascinating insights into CEO thinking, and identified several themes and trends that should be of great interest and value to business continuity practitioners.  Over the hour, the interview and questions from the audience covered a wide terrain; key messages can be summarised as follows:

• CEOs have clear views on resilience, and distinguish between short- and long-term challenges to their organisation’s resilience
• The single most important source of resilience was the culture of the organisation
• The culture underpins the organisation’s ability to change and adapt, and in some cases, shape the environment
• Various activities help to support the development of the “resilience characteristics” that the CEOs identified, including the extensive use of scenarios and simulations, training, communication and strategic planning
• Business continuity is one internal stakeholder that CEOs engage with to support organisational resilience, but the primary stakeholder is the HR department, as the custodian of organisational “culture”
• The results of the research emphasise the contextually specific nature of resilience – one size does not fit all and quite different concepts of resilience are appropriate.

To experience or re-live the BCI Annual Lecture 2012 >>

• Introduction

• CEO Perspectives on Organisational Resilience - The Big Debate - Part 1

• CEO Perspectives on Organisational Resilience - The Big Debate - Part 2

• Audience Questions

The source research paper by Dr Robert Kay “CEO perspectives on organisational resilience”, can be downloaded from the Australian Attorney-General’s Department.