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This white paper is intended for readers who are familiar with Business Continuity Management (BCM) and Disaster Recovery (DR) and the processes to develop and manage related policies, standards and procedures.  The purpose is to provide guidance to the effective implementation and maintenance of resilience and disaster recovery capability of IT systems, and is applicable, by scaling, to all sizes of business organisation. A full copy of the paper is at http://www.austinriskconsultants.com/downl

I recently authored a whitepaper for the Society of Actuaries 2016 Risk Symposium, exploring the strategic value of risk management.

Here is the Abstract:  

Many top-performing businesses aren’t just risk aware, but rather risk intelligent. Such a posture helps prepare companies for a major event and can demonstrate to a regulator or auditor that an appropriately strong control framework is in place.

Better still, companies gain real strategic value from a “risk adjusted” understanding not only of

A couple of weeks ago, a colleague of mine came to tell me about a new finding that she knew I'd love: BCM helps reduce data breach costs.

All I could think was, 'FINALLY.'

This is something that I've been telling clients for years: BCM is more valuable to your business than you can possibly imagine.

The new research from Ponemon Institute found that data breaches now cost as much as $4m - to say nothing of reputational hits. And, you could face a double whammy with higher insurance premiums, too.

B

Evidence is mounting that it is no longer an option to ignore investments in this important organizational capability. Companies need a rigorous enterprise risk management framework to effectively compete in today's uncertain environment. To help companies understand why they need ERM, here's an excerpt from my take on how enterprise risk management enables the business to move faster and overcome disruption:

The wider adoption of strategic risk management cannot come fast enough to save everyone

At LogicManager, we are firm believers that embracing risk management can result in two boons: ease of mind and success. On a related note, we recently came across an article by Carl Richards in The New York Times titled “For True Freedom, Learn to Deal with Uncertainty.”

“Right now, I’m working really hard on both having goals and accepting the reality of uncertainty,” Richards says. “In fact, I embrace the uncertainty and say to myself, ‘given that goal, and given the uncertainty, what’s to be

Introduction to Risk  provides an introduction to the key risk, business resilience, and internal audit procedures issues facing banking professionals. It provides an understanding of risk assessment including operational risk, risk identification, risk assessment, risk mitigation, risk monitoring and control.

It details the nature and importance of third party risk policies, understanding the concept of a model risk policy and business resilience. It also covers the importance of business contin

Over the weekend while traveling, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and as coincidence would have it, I hit “Chapter Seven: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes,” at a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet.

The challenge with Enterprise Risk Management is quantifying how many disasters have been prevented due to its efforts.  Because of this, there is still skepticism among senior management around exactly how ERM can help to prevent major operational, strategic, regulatory, and reputational di

Risk Leadership: My Must Dos for Business Continuity Management

Thanks to Rita for getting me moving on a Business Continuity article.  A topic I have neglected in this newsletter for quite some time.  Perhaps it is because I feel Business Continuity Management (BCM) as a discipline has developed nicely over the past couple of decades and most practitioners don’t need too many tips in this area. 

Once I got thinking about it and had a chat to another of my readers (thanks Greg) it made me realise

Christchurch City Council has just released a blueprint for the future of the city's CBD, entitled the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan. It is bold and imaginative and makes this statement: "we are here and we will be back better than ever before".

I have just returned from meetings with city planners and consultants in Christchurch during which we discussed recovery operations and the challenges they are facing. The planning time frame is years but we all know the implications will be for deca

Introduction

If you want to know why the Japan tsunami turned into a far greater disaster than the initial earthquake and learn the 7 main reasons for this calamity, then read on. In this article we will touch on the government, closed cultures, leadership vacuum, system failures and Japanese crisis management, timing and information practices.

By the end of this article you will have the information to act in a much more decisive manner during the next similar crisis or immediately review your cr

“Be Prepared” applies as much to a good disaster recovery plan as it has ever applied to the Boy Scouts. One aspect of the preparation involves the generation and verification of an up-to-date set of backup tapes. This article explains the TurboHercules mechanisms for keeping your backup tapes and backup machine up-to-date and ready to go in the event of an outage of your mainframe. Download the PDF

The Problem

Mos

The Problem

Most mainframe sites create regular backups of the data and programs on their mainframe

Many companies navigate the routine complexity of business with adequate or acceptable managem

Team Sport

ent, however it is the truly stellar company/s that excel not only on a routine basis but especially in times of crisis. It is select skills, experience and traits that are able to applied during times of critical decision-making that separate them from the herd. Specific skills and attributes are not something that can be learnt in the minutes and seconds required in order to apply to a criti

Bad weather or even natural calamities do not affect every city in the world nor every resident of the affected area. Accidents, an inevitable part of some environments, do not affect all your people or totally devalue all your assets. Terrorist do not consider everyone a viable target nor are their actions likely to impact everyone over the course of their lives. The facts remain that only a small percentage of events or incidents resulting in loss of value or productivity will affect your busi