ISO 22301:2019 Business Continuity Management System

What is ISO 22301?

It is an international standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and it describes how to manage business continuity in an organization. This standard is written by leading business continuity experts and provides the best framework for managing business continuity in an organization. One of the features that differentiates this standard from other business continuity frameworks/standards is that an organization can become certified by an accredited certification body and will therefore be able to prove its compliance to its customers, partners, owners, and other stakeholders.

There are four essential business benefits that a company can achieve with the implementation of the ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management System: 

Comply with legal requirements:

There are more and more countries defining laws and regulations requiring business continuity compliance. And beyond government interests, private businesses (e.g., financial institutions) are also requiring their suppliers and partners to implement business continuity solutions. And the good news is that ISO 22301 provides a perfect framework and methodology to support compliance with these requirements – by reducing administrative and operational effort, as well as the number of penalties to be paid. 

 Achieve marketing advantage:

If your company is ISO 22301 certified and your competitors aren’t, you will have an advantage over them when it comes to customers who are sensitive about keeping the continuity of their operations, and the delivery of their products and services. Additionally, such certification can help you get new customers, by making it easier to demonstrate that you are among the best in the industry, leading to increased market share and higher profits.

Reduce dependence on individuals: Often, a company’s critical activities rely on just a few people who are hard to replace. Management who are aware of this can make use of business continuity practices to become far less dependent on those individuals (either because of implemented replacement solutions or by documenting related tasks), meaning you can prevent a lot of headaches when someone leaves the organization.

Prevent large-scale damage: In a world of real-time services and transactions, every minute of down service costs money. Even if your business is not so sensitive to small periods of unavailability, disruptive incidents will cost you. By implementing business continuity practices compliant with ISO 22301, you will have a sort of insurance policy. Whether by preventing disruptive incidents from happening, or by becoming capable of faster recovery – your company will save money.