Organizations are facing unprecedented times as the measures being deployed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) are affecting their business operations. COVID-19 poses significant challenges for all these organizations and institutions because has unfolded without advance warning for preparation.
Many organizations have been forced to send many employees to work remotely from home. Financial institutions, Insurance companies, Government organizations, Manufacturing companies and Universities between others. This situation has increased the use and dependency in Information Systems.
Has your organization already established a crisis management team and set clear business continuity objectives to deal with COVID-19? Does everyone know their role and responsibilities (what they need to do now and when)?. Have communications been established internally and externally? Is there a mechanism in place to connect with all employees, customers, stakeholders, etc.?
The Business Continuity plan will help them to navigate disruption and continue with their operations
This plan guides organizations to respond immediately during the pandemic allowing them to minimize the impact on the business itself, to protect their employees and customers, and to continue with key business activities as best as possible in the event of scaled back operations or a complete shutdown.
ISO 22301 brings together international best practices to help organizations respond to, and recover from, disruptions effectively. This means reduced costs and less impact on business performance if something goes wrong.
Business Continuity Plan should include the IT Service Continuity (ITSC) as a subset and encompasses IT disaster recovery planning and wider IT resilience planning. It also incorporates those elements of IT infrastructure and services, which relate to communications such as (voice) telephony and data communications
ISO/IEC 24762:2008 provides guidelines on the provision of information and communications technology disaster recovery (ICT DR) services as part of business continuity management, applicable to both “in-house” and “outsourced” ICT DR service providers of physical facilities and services.
ISO/IEC 24762:2008 specifies:
- the requirements for implementing, operating, monitoring and maintaining ICT DR services and facilities;
- the capabilities which outsourced ICT DR service providers should possess and the practices they should follow, so as to provide basic secure operating environments and facilitate organizations’ recovery efforts;
- the guidance for selection of recovery site; and
- the guidance for ICT DR service providers to continuously improve their ICT DR services.
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