Business Continuity

Leading – differences between bcm and administrative crisis management

By |2021-09-29T11:18:07+02:00 29 September, 2021|Interest|

Business continuity management can also mean "emergency and crisis management". We also find this term in the administrative sector, as in the work of civil protection. But is leadership in the event of crises really the same? This short article is intended to highlight individual differences and similarities between these two emergency and crisis management approaches so that a distinction can be made and differentiation simplified. Causes of crises The causes of crises or disasters in the field of civil protection are almost exclusively external. This means, for example, natural disasters, terrorist attacks or a technical/human failure, which leads to high risks. In the case of companies, there are two additional causes: inadequate attention to operational fluctuations up to the point of escalation and the occurrence of latent problems, which lead to high reputational damage. The crisis is therefore not only brought in from the outside, but may [...]

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The crises team

By |2021-09-27T10:52:18+02:00 27 September, 2021|crisis management, Interest|

A crisis team is a group of people with decision-making authority who plan and implement the management of a crisis. Other names are a staff for extraordinary events or a task force. No matter what such a group is called, it must have decision-making capability and be responsible for managing the crisis. Fire Service Regulation 100 on Leadership and Command in Emergency Operations (German: Feuerwehr-Dienstvorschrift 100, FwDV 100 or DV 100) describes the crisis management team as it is used in emergency response (fire department, rescue service, disaster control/civil protection). Here, it is referred to as incident command staff. For more information on the distinction between the crisis management team and the command staff, you can read our blog article on the topic of "Leading - differences between BCM and official crisis management". The FwDV 100 was created after the Lüneburg Heath fire, as leadership faced great challenges [...]

Modern Hospital Alarm and Response Planning

By |2021-09-24T16:37:49+02:00 24 September, 2021|Interest, Norms & Standards|

Hospitals are specialized healthcare enterprises that operate either for profit or as a public legal entity. Crisis management in hospitals is also known as "hospital alert and response planning" (german: Krankenhaus Alarm- und Einsatzplanung KAEP), this has its roots in the need to increase treatment capacity. Examples of this are mass casualty incidents (MCI) or sick cases, where the hospital has to care for significantly more patients than in regular operation. Also described in the KAEP are measures to deal with functional failures, such as power outages. Hospital processes require personnel as well as resources embedded in an organization. Support from resources such as electricity, water, sewage, hygiene, IT, materials, medicines, etc. is required with the highest availability. Organizational, billing and documentation processes occur in parallel. The intersection between a hospital and a company from a business continuity management perspective is therefore very large. The Criticality Ordinance of [...]

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Emergency drills – stumbling blocks and importance

By |2021-08-31T12:01:14+02:00 31 August, 2021|News, Safety|

Due to multiple threat possibilities (e.g. natural phenomena, increasing dependencies on information technology, international terrorism, blackouts, pandemics, etc.), emergency drills are an important tool to prepare a company/organization for such scenarios. Only those who are prepared and feel prepared can handle an emergency adequately and in a timely manner. If this is not the case, emergencies can develop into crises or even disasters for one's own company/organization or even for other stakeholders. This article is intended to shed a little light on the complex topic of emergency drills, emphasizing the importance and problem areas of such drills by highlighting some aspects. Thus, there is by no means any claim to completeness. Importance of emergency drills As mentioned earlier, we are all virtually at the mercy of a variety of threats that can result in physical or financial damage or damage to reputation. These threat opportunities are difficult for [...]

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Case study companies with and without BCM

By |2021-08-30T08:08:32+02:00 30 August, 2021|Interest|

Why actually think and take precautions for robust corporate governance and supposedly expensive business continuity management? Paper is patient - and the ISO 22301 standard lies warm and dry in the cupboard. We take you through a case study to show you the process of an emergency using two differently positioned companies. Our case study takes you to two medium-sized companies operating in the same industry: House of cards-Money Tomb GmbH and robusta-Willow Tree KG. As "hidden champions," the companies produce the highest quality products and services in a niche area. Both companies have an extensive product portfolio, production at several locations, a business field of medical services and a large web presence with B2B and B2C contact. Key customers of the company come from the aviation industry, the automotive industry and other diverse sectors. Our protagonist is Bert van Jenssen, IT manager in the companies. The system [...]

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Embedding resilience into your cloud-based modernization strategy

By |2021-08-24T08:21:15+02:00 24 August, 2021|Interest|

As part of transformation and modernization strategies, enterprises are increasingly adopting cloud-first strategies. This provides an ideal opportunity to embed resilience. Consider three core components of modernization: people, applications and IT. "We don't know of any vendor or service provider today whose business model and revenue growth is not impacted by the increasing adoption of cloud-first strategies." Those were the words of Gartner analyst Sig Nag, commenting on the company's recent finding that the public cloud services market grew an astounding 17.5 percent in 2019 to a total of $214.3 billion. While the cloud is transforming businesses of all types, a key aspect of its appeal to traditional enterprises in particular is the role it plays in modernizing existing IT structures. In particular, migrating existing IT to an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model can be a blessing to comprehensive modernization strategies, with pay-as-you-use pricing structures helping to streamline and scale [...]

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Updated: Hospital alert planning for pandemics

By |2021-08-24T07:34:44+02:00 24 August, 2021|Interest|

The course of corona disease worldwide shows that a massive increase in the number of infected individuals is also to be expected in Germany. At present, there are still very few infected people compared to China and Italy. Pandemic measures are needed to reduce the spread, especially in hospitals. Corona, in the form of Covid-19, is a virus that can be transmitted from person to person. Vaccine protection against it has not yet been developed, so the only way to prevent it from spreading is through good hygiene and isolation of those infected. The legal basis for this in Germany is the Infection Protection Act, which requires compliance with the state of the art in medicine and epidemiology in order to prevent the spread. According to Section 4 (1) of the Infection Protection Act, the Robert Koch Institute is named to prescribe and develop this state of the art. Accordingly, the [...]

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Business continuity management as the key to cyber security

By |2021-08-19T08:37:59+02:00 19 August, 2021|Interest|

Resilience to cyberattacks requires much more than protective, defensive security tools and training. Resilience is also about the ability to recover quickly. Therefore, it must always include business continuity management activities. It's time to redefine the role of chief information security officers (CISOs) and budget accordingly. Although prevention is key to limiting cyberattacks, the question is whether it alone is enough. Cyberattacks are constantly increasing in number and severity. A chief information security officer is responsible for prevention, but we believe a CISO should also feel responsible for business continuity and crisis communication: The ability to respond so the business can return to business as usual as quickly as possible is a much more realistic goal than preventing attacks entirely. The goal: Detect, respond, recover and improve. But how can an organization respond to an attack while still planning for its future? By not separating preventive measures and [...]

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“New Normal” – Really that new?

By |2021-08-18T13:58:00+02:00 18 August, 2021|Interest, News|

In many places, life with and after SARS-Covid-19 is currently being described as the new normal. But much of what is supposed to be "new" is not so new. I dare to take a look back. The call of the tower guard: "Close the gates" announced imminent danger. The "lockdown" was the consequence. Isolation and waiting (historically: quarantine = 40 (itl. quaranta) days waiting period for ships entering the port of Venice to protect the narrow city from epidemics) were always the first step to ward off an epidemic. So far, nothing new. But behind the term "New Normal" lies the question of how to shape the future. And not just in dealing with a pandemic event. In terms of business processes, this means formulating modified requirements for business continuity management (BCM). Because closing the gates and waiting will have consequences: Necessary movements of people and goods are [...]

Is COVID-19 really a “Black Swan”?

By |2021-08-18T13:27:29+02:00 18 August, 2021|Interest|

Many commentators referred to the COVID-19 pandemic as a "Black Swan" event. However, this is a misunderstanding of what a Black Swan actually is. Understanding the difference moves COVID-19 from the list of events for which governments and organizations could not prepare to the list of events for which they should have prepared. What are Black Swans? The theory of Black Swan events was developed to categorize unpredictable high-impact events. Nassim Nicholas Taleb first proposed the term in his 2001 book Fooled by Randomness. In 2007, he expanded the concept in his better-known book, "The Black Swan." According to Taleb, a Black Swan event has three characteristics: "First, it is an outlier, being outside the range of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it has an extreme impact. Third, despite its outlier status, human nature lets us concoct explanations for [...]

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